404 Tracker & Redirects

A tiny WordPress plugin that logs every 404 hit — URL, referrer, hit count, first and last seen — and lets you create 301 redirects in one click. Broken backlinks and mistyped URLs quietly bleed SEO juice; this shows you exactly which dead URLs matter.

Features

• 404 log — one row per dead URL with hit counter, referrer host, first/last seen timestamps, sortable by hits (worst offenders first)
• One-click 301 redirects — create a redirect straight from a log row; paths matched trailing-slash-agnostic
• Redirect manager — list and remove all active 301s from the same screen
• Clear log / delete entries — keep the table small on busy sites
• Filter hook — wp404t_exclude_patterns: pass PCRE patterns to skip URLs from logging (e.g. cache-warmer noise)

Install

1. Copy wp-404-tracker.php and uninstall.php into wp-content/plugins/wp-404-tracker/
2. Activate in Plugins — the database table is created automatically
3. Open Tools → 404 Tracker

Usage

Visit a non-existent URL on your site, then check the log. Click Redirect next to a row, enter the destination URL, and the 301 is live immediately — no .htaccess edits, no extra plugin suite.

// functions.php — skip logging for noisy bot paths
add_filter('wp404t_exclude_patterns', function ($patterns) {
    $patterns[] = '#^/wp-content/cache/#';
    $patterns[] = '#\.map$#';
    return $patterns;
});

Redirects are stored in the wp404t_redirects option and served at template_redirect priority 1 (before WordPress renders the 404). Uninstalling drops the table and the option.

Requires WordPress 5.0+ and PHP 7.4+. GPLv2 or later (WordPress plugin convention).