Webmaster Tools vs Screaming from for 404's

[Adamshowbiz]

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

[Adamshowbiz]

Thanks guys

[DennisSeymour]

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.

[MattAntonino]

I'm not sure my method is right but I always seem to do this:

1. Run Screaming Frog & find my 404s.

2. Fix all the 404s I can.

3. Clear WMT of errors (mark as fixed.)

4. Fix whatever WMT errors come back that I may have  missed.

It works for me - hope it helps!