Broken Links from Open Site Explorer
-
I am trying to find broken internal links within my site. I found a page that was non-existent but had a bunch of internal links pointing to that page, so I ran an Open Site Explorer report for that URL, but it's limited to 25 URLs.
Is there a way to get a report of all of my internal pages that link to this invalid URL? I tried using the link: search modifier in Google, but that shows no responses.
-
Whew! Big thread.
Sometimes, when you can't find all the broken links to a page, it's easier simply to 301 redirect the page to a destination of your choice. This helps preserve link equity, even for those broken links you can't find on large sites. (and external links, as well)
Not sure if this would help in your situation, but I hope you're getting things sorted out!
-
Jesse,
That's where I started my search, but GWMT wasn't showing this link. I can only presume that because it isn't coming back a 404 (it is showing that "We're Sorry" message instead) that they're considering that message to be content.
Thanks!
-
Lynn, that was a BIG help. I had been running that report, but was restricted to 25 responses. When I saw your suggestion to filter for only internal links, I was able to see all 127.
Big props. Thanks!
-
One more thing to add - GWMT should report all 404 links and their location/referrer.
-
oops! i did not know this. Thanks Irving.
-
Use the word FREE with an asterisk because sreaming frog is now limiting the free version to 500 pages. Xenu is better, even brokenlinkcheck.com lets you spider 3000 pages.
500 pages makes the tool practically worthless for any site of decent size.
-
Indeed if it is not showing a 404, that makes things a bit difficult!
You could try another way, use OSE!
Use the exact page, filter for only internal links, boom 127 pages that link to it. There might be more, but this should get you going!
-
Jesse:
I appreciate your feedback, but am surprised that the ScreamingFrog report found no 404s. SEOmoz found 15 in Roger's last crawl, but those aren't the ones that I'm currently trying to solve.
The problem page is actually showing up as duplicate content, which is kinda screwy. When visiting the page, our normal 404 error doesn't appear (which our developers are still trying to figure out), but instead, an error message appears:
http://www.gallerydirect.com/about-us/media-birchwood
If this were a normal 404 page, we'd probably be able to find the links faster.
-
I got tired of the confusion and went ahead and proved it. Not sure if this is the site you wanted results for, but I used the site linked in your profile (www.gallerydirect.com)
took me about 90 seconds and I had a full list... no 404s though
anyway here's a screenshot to prove it:
http://gyazo.com/67b5763e30722a334f3970643798ca62.png
so what's the problem? want me to crawl the fbi site next?
-
I understand. Thing is, there is a way and the spider doesn't affect anything. Like I said, I have screaming frog installed on my computer and I could run a report for your website right now and you or your IT department would never know it happened.. I just don't understand the part where the software doesn't work for you but to each their own i suppose.
-
Jesse:
That movie was creepy, but John Goodman was awesome in it.
I started this thread because I was frustrated that OSE restricts my results to 25 links, and I simply wanted to find the rest for that particular URL. I was assuming that there was either:
a. A method for getting the rest of the links that Roger found
b. Another way of pulling these reports from someone who already spiders them (since I can't get any using the link:[URL] in Google and Webmaster Tools isn't showing them).
Thanks to all for your suggestions.
-
run the spider based app from outside their "precious network" then. hell, i could run it right now for you from my computer at work if I wanted. Use your laptop or home computer. It's a simple spider you don't have to be within any network to run it. You could run one for CNN.com if you'd like as well...
-
How else do you expect to trace these broken links without using a "spider?"
Obviously it's the solution. And the programs take up all of like 8 megs... so what's the problem/concern?
I second the screaming frog solution. It will tell you exactly what you need to know and has ZERO risk involved (or whatever it is that's hanging you up). The bazooka comparison is ridiculous, because a bazooka destroys your house. Do you really think a spider crawl will affect your website?
Spiders crawl your site and report findings. This happens often whether you download a simple piece of software or not. What do you think OSE is? Or Google?
I guess what we're saying is if you don't like the answer, then so be it. But that's the answer.
PS - OSE uses a spider to crawl your site...
PPS - Do you suffer from arachnophobia? That movie was friggin awesome now I want to watch old Jeff Daniels films.
PPSS - Do you guys remember John Goodman being in that movie? Wow the late 80s early 90s were really somethin' special.
-
John, I certainly see your point, but our IT guys would not take too kindly to me running a spider-based app from inside their precious network, which is why I was looking for a less intrusive solution.
I'm planning on a campaign to revive "flummoxed" to the everyday lexicon next.
-
Hi Darin,
Both these softwares are made for exactly this kind of job and they are not huge system killing programs or anything. Seriously I use one or both almost every day. I suggest downloading them and seeing how you go, I think you will be happy enough with the results.
-
The way I see it, its much like you missing the last flight home, and you have a choice of getting the bus, that means you might take a little longer, or of course you can wait for the next flight ,which happens to be tomorrow evening, the bus will get you home that night.
I get the bus each and every time, I get home, later than expected I grant you, but I get home a lot quicker than waiting for the plane tomorrow.
Bewildered, I didn't realise it had fallen out of the diction, its a common word (I think) in Ireland, oh and I am still young (ish)
-
John:
Bewildered. There's a good word that I'm happy to see someone is keeping it alive for the younger generations.
I'm not ungrateful for your suggestions, but both involve downloading and installing a spider, which seems like overkill, much like using a bazooka to kill a housefly.
-
I am bewildered by this, I have told you one, Lynn has told you another piece of free software that will do this for you.
Anyway, good luck with however you resolve our issues
-
Lynn, part of the problem is definitely template-based, and one of our developers is working on that fix now. However, I also found a number of non-template created links to this page simply due to UBD error (an old Cobol programming term meaning User Brain Dead).
I need to find all of the non-template based, UBD links that may have been created and fix them.
-
Xenu will also do a similar job and doesn't have a limit which I recall the free version of screaming frog has: http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html
If you have loads of links to this missing page it sounds like you maybe have a template problem with the links getting inserted on every or lots of pages. In that case if you find the point in the template you will have fixed them all at once (if indeed it is like this).
-
Darin
Its a stand alone piece of software you run, it crawls your website and finds out broken inbound, outbound or internal links, tells you them ,you go and fix them
Enter your URL, be it a page or directory, run it, it will give you all bad links. And it wont limit you to 25.
You don't need to implement anything ... run the software once, use it, and well bin it afterwards if you wish
But by all means, you can do as you suggest with SE ...
Regards
John
-
John,
While I could look at implementing such a spider to run the check sitewide on a regular basis, I am not looking to go that far at the moment. For right now, I'm only looking for all of the pages on my site that link to a single incorrect URL. I would have to think that there's a solution available for such a limited search.
If I have to, I suppose I can fix the 25 that Open Site Explorer displays, wait a few days for the crawler to run again, then run the report again, fix the next 25, then so on and so on, but that's going to spread the fix out potentially over a number of weeks.
-
Free tool, non SEO Moz related
http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/ , run that, will find all broken links, where they are coming from etc etc
Hope I aint braking any rules posting it
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
-
Lower quality new domain link vs higher quality repeat domain link
First time poster here with a dilemma that head scratching and spreadsheets can't solve! I'm trying to work out whether to focus on getting links from new domains or to nurture relationships with the bigger sites in our business and get more links. Of the two links below which does the community here think would be more valuable a signal to Google? Both would be links from within relevant text/post copy. Link 1. Site DA 30. No links currently from this domain. Link 2. Site DA 60. Many links over last 12 months already from this domain. I suspect link 1 but given the enormous disparity in ranking power am I correct?! Thanks for any considered opinions out there! Matthew
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mat20150 -
Competitor sites vs mine - No links, lower DA, and still beating me.
Thank you for taking the time to read my question. I have a website - berneseoftherockies.com - it is a bernese mountain dog website My competitors are Rockymountainpuppies(dot)com and Coloradobernesemountaindog(dot)com When using the Moz tools, I see they have no incoming links, except for one site has 5 links from its own pages. But when I type in Bernese Mountain Dogs Colorado - I am no where to be found, except for a you tube video. So what am I doing so wrong? They are basically doing nothing, and killing me in the serps. I have gotten social media stuff like Google +, facebook, twitter, pinterest, and youtube. They are still behind the times. So any thoughtful advice is appreciated. I mainly cater to the state of Colorado where I live. So just curious if there is something at the top of your head that you may think of that's causing my issues? Like could it be my hosting? Like can you have a black listed host? I am with Hostdime I did have a few, like 10 foreign backlinks, which I did remove or disavow I think its called. I have used the title tag tools here to get proper size title tags, and decent keyword density. I built the site for people first, then Google etc. So not sure if you are allowed to tell me, but maybe you can advise me on a decent seo company, or maybe give me a couple tips that may help me out. Please no - read the moz book, I am reading it and trying to do what I am reading. But maybe something simple is keeping me from showing up, while these other sites are. Thank you so much for any advice.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Berner0 -
Merging 11 community sites into 1 regional site
I am merging 11 real estate community sites into 1 regional site and don't really know what type of redirect should I use for the homepage?, for instance: www.homepage.com redirect to www.regionalsite.com/community-page Should I 301 this redirect? If yes, how could I 301 redirect a homepage to an internal page in my new site? Cheers 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mbulox0 -
How to make Link Building for the E-Commerce sites?
Hello everyone, I just ask one question: How to make Link Building for the E-Commerce sites?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | backlinkmag0 -
Site wide internal links in footer
I have had a long discussion with a client and their external SEO partner about their current footer. They have added all their product categories, both main and sub, to the footer. From a pure SEO perspective is it still advisable, after all the pandas and penguines, to stay away from keyword important site wide footer linking to internal pages? As the links will become a repeatable element and also containing the most important keywords, isn't the links actually hurting more than helping? With 5000 index pages, it will risk "marking" the most important keywords as repeatable, lowering ranking, instead of increasing as their external part say.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Macaper1 -
Is the Tool Forcing Sites to Link Out?
Hi I have a tool that I wish to give to sites, it allows the user to get an accurate idea of their credit score with out giving away any personal data and with out having a credit search done on their file. Due to the way the tool works and to make the implementation on other peoples sites as simple as possible the tool remains hosted by me and a one line piece of Javascript code just needs to be added to the code of the site wishing to use the tool. This code includes a link to my site to call the information from my server to allow the tool to show and work on the other site. My questions are: Could this cause a problem with Google as far as their link quality goes? - Are we forcing people to give us a backlink to use the tool? (in the eyes of Google) or will Google not be able to read the Javascript / will ignore the link for SEO purposes? Should I make the link in the code Nofollow? If I should make the link a Nofollow any tips on how to make the most of the opportunity from a link building or SEO point of view? Thanks for your help
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MotoringSEO0 -
Network Of Sites...
Hi Guys, Just wondering if anyone can help me out... We have recently been hit by the Google penguin update and I'm currently working though all the bad / spammy backlinks that previous SEO companies have built for us. I have come across 1 particular domain www.justgoodcars.com they seem to have a lot of different domain names: <colgroup><col width="390"></colgroup>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ScottBaxterWW
| http://www.justpulsarcars.com/nissan-pulsar-warranties/1/United_Kingdom/all.html |
| http://www.justpumacars.com/ford-puma-warranties/1/United_Kingdom/all.html |
| http://www.justpuntocars.com/dutch-site/fiat-punto-warranties/1/United_Kingdom/all.html?selectcountry1=United_Kingdom |
| http://www.justpuntocars.com/fiat-punto-warranties/1/United_Kingdom/all.html?selectcountry1=United_Kingdom | Now all of theses domains names have exactly the same IP Address?? Above is just a few I would say there are 100s of them. Do you think this could have an affect on us? Thanks, Scott0