Log Settings
The Logs tab on the Settings page controls what the Log action records when a 404 fires. These toggles don't affect already-saved logs — they decide what gets written from this point forward.
Log 404 errors
Setting key: logs_enabled · Default: On
The master switch. When off, the Log action becomes a no-op: nothing is written, the hit counter doesn't increment, and the Logs page stops gaining new rows.
The Redirect action still runs even with logging off. Disable this when you care about redirecting broken URLs but not about archiving the misses.
Hit counter and notifications
The Notifications subsystem reads the per-URL hits counter to decide whether to send an email. With logging disabled the counter never advances, so notifications effectively stop too.
Skip search engine bots
Setting key: logs_skip_bots · Default: On
Crawlers issue an unusual amount of 404 traffic — abandoned URLs from years ago, fuzzed paths, third-party link probes. Most of it is noise.
When this toggle is on, requests whose User-Agent matches the plugin's crawler heuristic (the usual bot, spider, slurp, etc. tokens) are skipped before the log row is written. The classification runs through the 404_to_301_is_human filter, so custom UA rules can override it — see the developer docs.
Keeping this on is the easiest way to stop the log table ballooning on public sites.
Skip duplicate URLs
Setting key: logs_skip_duplicates · Default: Off
Changes how repeat hits on the same URL behave.
- Off (default) — the first 404 on a URL creates a row; every later 404 on the same URL bumps that row's
hitscounter and updateslast_hit. This is the most informative mode: you can see which broken URLs are popular. - On — only the first 404 on a URL is recorded. Subsequent hits are ignored entirely.
Turn this on when you only need a checklist of distinct broken URLs and don't care which is hit most often.
What about pruning old logs?
The core plugin records logs but doesn't delete them automatically. For that, install the free Logs Cleaner add-on (advertised at the bottom of this tab when not active): it adds size-based, age-based and scheduled pruning so the log table stays small on its own. See the Logs Cleaner add-on docs.