For those who are blogging on a self-hosted blog, we normally host our blog on our own server as well so when the images are inaccessible, it also means that our blog might be inaccessible as well.
However, some bloggers do host their blogs on image hosting sites like Flickr, Photobucket and ImageShack or on any other external sites which are very prone to having broken images published on their blogs. Also, we might have mistyped the URL for our images sometimes.
A few weeks back, I introduced the Broken Link Checker plugin, which is capable of notifying bloggers blogging on a self-hosted Wordpress platform about the existence of any broken images found on the blog as well.
The Problems With Broken Images
A broken image is much more troublesome than a broken link as a broken image will have the following effects:
- Bad first impression for readers
- Fail your attempt to convey your information such as in a how-to article
- Ugly red X will be shown if your readers are using Internet Explorer
We are not monitoring and scanning through our articles 24 hours a day and we will not know that when our images will be missing from our blog.
To cut the story short, no one would want a single broken image to spoil the appearance of a blog.
Broken Images Plugin To Help Hiding Broken Images
Broken Images plugin, which was created by Kaloyan Tsvetkov, is a great Wordpress plugin for those who finds the images used on their blogs are part of the essentials.
There are 4 options on how this plugin will deal with a broken image that it come across:
- Do nothing
- Hide the broken images
- Replace broken images with another one from a specified URL
- Style the broken images by applying a CSS class to them
The installation is easier than writing a blog post for your blog. Just the common upload, extract and activate steps and you’ll be done after you have set up the options on how this plugin can perform for you.
One downside of this plugin is that it uses a Javascript snippet to perform its function. This means that some ad panel haters who might have their Javascript turned off via the browser settings will fail this plugin.
Synergy of Broken Link Checker and Broken Images Plugin
A trick to notice about a broken image on your blog is to have the Broken Link Checker installed and a solution can be provided by the Broken Images plugin if there are no temporary replacement found for the broken image.
As far as I am concern, these two plugins work well together and I am sure that after having them both on board, you shouldn’t have any serious "broken" problems on your blog anymore.
Your Opinion On Broken Images
Do you think that this plugin is useful? Do you frequently come across broken images on your blog? If you do, what are the reasons? Also, in what way do you think the plugin creator can improve this wonderful plugin?
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February 3rd, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Well, its probably an easy sell when someone has been reading your blog for a year or so!
February 3rd, 2008 at 10:49 pm
I don’t really get what you mean but of course, loyal readers won’t just leave your blog because of some broken images. However, you might be leaving some bad impression on new readers.
February 4th, 2008 at 2:03 am
I think this is definately a useful plugin as lots of my images in my older posts are broken. Going to give it a try.
February 4th, 2008 at 11:30 am
Great plugin there dude. Thanks for sharing.. Will give a try.
February 4th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
I think it was better if plugin could prompt a blogger for broken image. Take example of your blog only… you have many images from flicker with credit note below it specifying the owner. If a broken image is hidden in such a case the credit line will still be there causing a confusion for reader.
February 4th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
@ Madhur
Hope that it helps. Do use it with the Broken Link Checker plugin recommended.
@ Chetan
Hope that it will help you out.
@ Jalaj
Good point made there. Anyway, maybe this is the reason why bloggers keep the credit words small.
February 5th, 2008 at 1:39 am
Thanks for sharing with all of us this plug in Wayne..will give a look soon.
February 5th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
I have a suggestion/workaround.
Select the third option “Put Image” and give path of a php file that records the referrer in some text file and outputs/redirects any image say error image.
This way whenever a page containing a broken image is viewed by a reader the php page when called will record the referrer (or better send you a mail or so) and you can know where to find for it.
February 6th, 2008 at 1:55 am
@ dott-com
Try it out and I stand by my recommendation.
@ Jalaj
Nice one. Wait a minute, does that have anything to do with coding? I am bad in this…
February 6th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Yes, that will require coding.
Since I have my blog at wordpress.com where I cannot install my plugins, I will not be able to properly test it out with the plugin, but I think that if I develop the code it will at least increase posts at my blog by 1.
I will revert soon with the code (you will know that by pingback).
February 7th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Will be very eager about it.
February 7th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
it works well, but it’ll be great if it points out where the broken images are. just like the broken links plug-in
February 8th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
This function will be available in the Broken Link Checker mentioned in the post above. Anyway, it will be great if both of them are combined.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Do you think that this plugin is useful?
It ought to be a useful plugin for those who need it.
Do you frequently come across broken images on your blog?
Hell no. I host my own images so no such problem.
Seriously, for those bloggers who have their own domain, own web space etc. Why the poke do they still rely on free services such as imageshack or flickr etc?
Yeah, Wayne, you are one of them. Now explain.
February 25th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
No, Deimos. Things changed since you had a MIA from commenting here. The images are all hosted on my host now. Previously, I thought the space provided to me will quickly run out if I host the images myself. However, I soon realized that the storage is more than enough after all…
February 25th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
@Wayne:
Oh. Okay, so you were one of them, no longer. Good.
Actually, if one has enough space and monthly bandwidth, image hosting should not be a problem for a very very long time.
For myself, my web space and monthly bandwidth is both 100GB.