Webmaster Tools vs Screaming from for 404's
-
Hey guys,
I was just wondering which is better to use to find the 404's effecting your site.
I have been using webmaster tools and just purchased screaming frog which has given me a totally different list of 404's compared to WMT.
Which do I use, or do I use both?
Cheers
-
Thanks guys
-
Fix both since these are still returning 404's
I suggest that:
1. Start with GWT and clean out those links. If these are broken backlinks and are WORTH it, then fix it. If these are worthless links, ignore them.
2. Mark as fixed.
3. run screaming frog. Make sure you are getting 404's and not dns or maybe the site went down because you crawled it too much
4. Export the 404's and check them one by one
5. If it's fixed, then you are done with those.
-
I'm not sure my method is right but I always seem to do this:
-
Run Screaming Frog & find my 404s.
-
Fix all the 404s I can.
-
Clear WMT of errors (mark as fixed.)
-
Fix whatever WMT errors come back that I may have missed.
It works for me - hope it helps!
-
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How long does it take for Webmaster Tools to index a site?
I submitted my client's site about a week ago. It had 138 links, it's still at 43 links. Should it be taking that long to index? Thanks! Luciana
Technical SEO | | Luciana_BAH1 -
Does Google add parameters to the URL parameters in webmaster tools/
I am seeing new parameters added (and sometimes removed) from the URL Parameter tool. Is there anything that would add parameters to the tool? Or does it have to be someone internally? FYI - They always have no date in the configured column, no effect set, and crawl is set to Let Google decide.
Technical SEO | | merch_zzounds0 -
Site was infected with spam webmaster tools still reporting it
I have recently been working with a site that was hacked. It suffered from a pharma injection into Joomla. The site has been cleaned for several months, but WMT is still reporting "pharmacy" as occuring 421 times. The url it gives reports a 500 error. I also removed it in Google. Can this still be hurting the site? How can I clean this up?
Technical SEO | | smcmark0 -
Why are my URL's with a trailing slash still getting indexed even though they are redirected in the .htaccess file?
My .htaccess file is set up to redirect a URL with a trailing / to the URL without the /. However, my SEOmoz crawl diagnostics report is showing both URL's. I took a look at my Google Webmaster account and saw some duplicate META title issues. Same thing, Google Webmaster is showing the URL with the trailing /. My website was live for about 3 days before I added the code to the .htaccess file to remove the trailing /. Is it possible that in those 3 days that both versions were indexed and haven't been removed even though the .htaccess file has been updated?
Technical SEO | | mkhGT0 -
How do SE's see abbreviated queries.
Do search engines pay attention to periods in abbreviated queries? If I use Mt. Bachelor all over my site, would SE's not rank my site well for queries that use Mt Bachelor?
Technical SEO | | Shawn_Huber0 -
Why am I not showing up in the SERP's or Google Local?
I have been trying to optimise the following site for both Google SERP's and Google Local - Pixel Primate The URL has been around for around 3 years now but they just updated the website and launched it in December 2012. I did the on-page optimisation early in January 2013 and Google seems to have indexed the changes, for the home page at least. One major keyword I am targeting for the home page is 'Web Design Leicester'. I understand that the DA is fairly low (24) so this is something I need to improve. However, I've experienced positive results fairly quickly from just on-page optimisation for other sites I have worked on. The site just doesn't seem to be ranking at all for any keywords. Maybe the industry type is just extremely competitve but I find it very strange to not be visible anywhere in the SERPs. The site does not seem to have any penalties as it ranks for 'Pixel Primate' and all pages appear when doing a site: search. Also what's strange is that I set up the Google Local listing years ago but it doesn't appear anywhere in the local listing, not even when I search for it manually. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Technical SEO | | CWseo0 -
Webmaster Tools finding phantom 404s?
We recently (three months now!) switched over a site from .co.uk to .com and all old urls are re-directing to the new site. However, Google Webmaster tools is flagging up hundreds of 404s from the old site and yet doesn't report where the links were found, i.e. in the 'Linked From' tab there is no data and the old links are not in the sitemap. SEOmoz crawls do not report any 404s. Any ideas?
Technical SEO | | Switch_Digital0 -
How Best to Handle 'Site Jacking' (Unauthorized Use of Someone else's Dedicated IP Address)
Anyone can point their domain to any IP address they want. I've found at least two domains (same owner) with two totally unrelated domains (to each other and to us) that are currently pointing their domains to our IP address. The IP address is on our dedicated server (we control the entire physical server) and is exclusive to only that one domain (so it isn't a virtual hosting misconfiguration issue) This has caused Google to index their two domains with duplicate content from our site (found by searching for site:www.theirdomain.com) Their site does not come up in the first 50 results though for any of the keywords we come up for so Google obviously knows THEY are the dupe content, not us (our site has been around for 12 years - much longer than them.) Their registration is private and we have not been able to contact these people. I'm not sure if this is just a mistake on the DNS for the two domains or it is someone doing this intentionally to try to harm our ranking. It has been going on for a while, so it is most likely not a mistake for two live sites as they would have noticed long ago they were pointing to the wrong IP. I can think of a variety of actions to take but I can find no information anywhere regarding what Google officially recommends doing in this situation, assuming you can't get a response. Here's my ideas. a) Approach it as a Digital Copyright Violation and go through the lengthy process of having their site taken down. Pro: Eliminates the issue. Con: Sort of a pain and we could be leaving possibly some link juice on the table? b) Modify .htaccess to do a 301 redirect from any URL not using our domain, to our domain. This means Google is going to see several domains all pointing to the same IP and all except our domain, 301 redirecting to our domain. Not sure if THAT will harm (or help) us? Would we not receive link juice then from any site out there that was linking to these other domains? Con: Google will see the context of the backlinks and their link text will not be related at all to our site. In addition, if any of these other domains pointing to our IP have backlinks from 'bad neighborhoods' I assume it could hurt us? c) Modify .htaccess to do a 404 File Not Found or 403 forbidden error? I posted in other forums and have gotten suggestions that are all over the map. In many cases the posters don't even understand what I'm talking about - thinking they are just normal backlinks. Argh! So I'm taking this to "The Experts" on SEOMoz.
Technical SEO | | jcrist1