Is Webmaster Tools Useless as a broken Link Detector?
-
Buongiorno from yes we still have free parking Wetherby UK!
Ok when it comes to detecting broken links I'm getting really frustrated with webmaster tools. Now I'm probably going to end up with egg on my face with this one but here is an example of webmaster tools reporting a broken link which i cant find.http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/phantom-broken-links_zpsb74e1246.jpg
Having trawled through the code i just cant see the knackered link? Is it a phantom report or is something usefull being detected here?
Grazie tanto,
David -
Hi David,
Check the date when the broken link was detected in Google Webmaster Tools. The reports get updated late in GWT. To ensure that all the internal links ae working fine, use Xenu Link Sleuth. It is a freely available tool and is pretty good at detecting broken links.
Regards
-
I use a chrome extension and it is very reliable, called check my links. I checked the page with it and it didn't report any broken link.
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
-
Hello, our domain authority dropped significantly overnight from 37 to 29\. We have been building good links from high DA pages and producing quality, regular content.
Hello, our domain authority dropped significantly overnight from 37 to 29. We have been building good links from high DA sites and producing regular, good quality content. Anyone able to offer any ideas why? Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | ProMOZ1231 -
How can I redirect incoming links from an old version of my site ending in .ctlg and .ivnu?
My original site was published in 2001 using "version 2" software from Ivenue, the hosting company that I signed up with at that time. The site's structure was built in such a way that the primary category pages ended in the extension .ivnu. Product or item pages on the shopping cart side ended in the extension .ctlg. My site's name was and is [Lamplight Feather, Inc.](<a class="webkit-html-attribute-value webkit-html-external-link" href="http://www.tonyhill.net/" target="_blank">http://www.tonyhill.net/</a>). We built our business between 2001 and 2011 and by the last three years (2009 - 2011) of using their version two were averaging a million dollars per year in gross sales. We decided to "upgrade" to Ivenue's "version 3" in 2011 to take advantage of some more modern options and because their newer software created web pages ending in .html which we thought more desirable. We made the switch in late 2011. But it was a disaster. Traffic and sales dropped precipitously. For the past two years (2012-2013) our annual gross sales average dropped to $400,000. (Two other factors were involved beside losing the many incoming links and link juice we had built up over the years: Panda came in that fall and my little niche market (decorative feathers) was flooded with competitors.) However as I try to rebuild our traffic and business little by little, I am stumped as to how to redirect the many incoming links that went to our first site's .ivnu and .ctlg pages. I have constructed redirects for some of our current but changed .html pages like this and put them in the file cabinet and they work: For (example): http://www.tonyhill.net/feathers_c384589.html then But trying the same thing for (example) http://www.tonyhill.net/craftfeathers.ivnu still returns a 404. Is there something I am missing. Ivenue is useless in this matter by the way. Their "technicians" are no help. I plan to be migrating my site once again to a new hosting company and hope to solve this problem before then. Thanks for the attention, Tony Hill This is an example from Google Webmaster of the type of links that show up as 404's that I would like to redirect: | URL: | http://www.tonyhill.net/productCat96521.ctlg | | | Error details | Linked from | | <colgroup><col></colgroup>
Reporting & Analytics | | featherman
| http://www.tonyhill.net/productCat43986.ctlg |
| http://forum.muppetcentral.com/showthread.php?t=21416&page=2 |
| http://www.cosplay.com/showthread.php?p=3832751 |
| http://forum.muppetcentral.com/showthread.php?t=21416&page=2&highlight=fur |
| http://www.muppetcentral.com/forum/threads/puppeteers-resources-links.19330/page-2 |
| http://www.muppetcentral.com/forum/threads/how-do-you-like-my-puppets.18549/page-2 | | | | |0 -
Is Google turning Off Webmaster Tools Search data
My Webmaster Tools account has stopped showing data past 9/23, which is a full week old. Typically it is just a few days behind schedule. Is Google cutting this off?
Reporting & Analytics | | gametv0 -
By linking adwords to ga is it possible to get it done within one profile only?
Hi mozzers, i have a ga account with 40 profiles and none of them are connected to adwords. I would like to connect adwords to just the combined profile and not the other 39 profiles? Is this possible? if it is how would you do it? thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Google Webmasters DNS error
Hi, In my webmaster tools I have a yellow triangle stating that there is a DNS error that is preventing Google crawling my sites. The site is indexed and I have checked fetch as Google and that seems ok but the triangle is still there every time I check it. The whois sites all have the correct information and point to Hostgator who I am using. I have contacted them and they said everything seems ok. Should I just carry on as normal with my link building as the site is indexed or investigate even further? Cheers, Stuart
Reporting & Analytics | | stuart420 -
Verify web master tools ?!?!
Randomly today google web master tools all of a sudden wants me to re-verify my site and is giving me the error: Verification failed for **http://www.shiftins.com/ **using the Meta tag method (less than a minute ago). We couldn't find the verification meta tag. but if you view the page source it is clearly listed..... this happened only today while no changes were made to the site. Does anyone have a solution?
Reporting & Analytics | | shiftins0 -
Google WM Tools: Canonical URL
Hello, We have a Google Webmaster Tools account under nlpca(dot)com but our preferred URL is www.nlpca(dot)com Do I need to delete the account and start over with the correct domain version, or is there a setting I can set somewhere? The code is in Joomla so I can't set a rel="canonical" in just the home page. Currently we have all home page version redirected to www.nlpca(dot)com Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | BobGW0 -
Why are Seemingly Randomly Generated URLs Appearing as Errors in Google Webmaster Tools?
I've been confused by some URLs that are showing up as errors in our GWT account. They seem to just be randomly generated alphanumeric strings that Google is reporting as 404 errors. The pages do 404 because nothing ever existed there or was linked to. Here are some examples that are just off of our root domain: /JEzjLs2wBR0D6wILPy0RCkM/WFRnUK9JrDyRoVCnR8= /MevaBpcKoXnbHJpoTI5P42QPmQpjEPBlYffwY8Mc5I= /YAKM15iU846X/ymikGEPsdq 26PUoIYSwfb8 FBh34= I haven't been able to track down these character strings in any internet index or anywhere in our source code so I have no idea why Google is reporting them. We've been pretty vigilant lately about duplicate content and thin content issues and my concern is that there are an unspecified number of urls like this that Google thinks exist but don't really. Has anyone else seen GWT reporting errors like this for their site? Does anyone have any clue why Google would report them as errors?
Reporting & Analytics | | kimwetter0