Moz is reporting a broken link error but GWT is not
-
My latest Moz report is showing a 404 for: http://www.fateyes.com/how-will-googles-hummingbird-affect-your-search-ranking/”ht
(and showing the link this way with the characters after the last / which are not part of the page URL)Google Webmaster Tools says we have no errors. I'm wondering why there is this descrepancy and I'm wondering how I can track down where this link is originating from on our site. I've tried downloading screamingfrog and deeptrawl to no avail (java issues). I've also tried a couple of services online and installed Broken Link Checker plugin with no luck finding it.
Any suggestions? Thanks in advance!
-
I couldn't find it after some research. Maybe the error will dissaper after the next crawl. Normally you should be able to see the linking page. I'm sorry I couldn't help.
I did find some other things on your website you might want to fix. I just sent you a PM.
-
Thank you Everett. We are not using either of those plugins.
BUT! Your explanation about the double quotes got me thinking in the right direction. This blog post has an embedded infographic and when i was installing it, I had to correct a number of double quotes in the link to make the graphic appear. However, I didn't see that the attribution link had the double quotes also. So it's all solved now! Thank you again.
-
Thank you Robnnl. That makes sense about GWMT.
I would love to go to the linking page and solve it but I can't find where it's coming from. Clicking through to the error in Moz gives me no other information beyond the URL. It does not give me the page it's coming from. And if I don't know where the link is originating from I can't set a redirect.
Forgive me, but I don't understand how it could be an issue with an external site yet showing up as an error on my site. Moz is telling me it's on my site, aren't they?
-
%E2%80%9D is the UTF-8 encoding for the unicode character of the right double quotation marks (double quotes). This is a somewhat common issue with some Wordpress plugins. Please refer to the two posts below, especially if you are using either the Yoast's Google Analytics plug-in or a social plugin called Links Alpha.
http://moz.com/community/q/e2-80-9d-breaking-the-url-in-wordpress
http://moz.com/community/q/google-indexing-thousands-crazy-search-results-with-25253
As for the discrepancy, it could just be that Google's crawlers are a little "smarter" than Moz.com's in figuring out when unicode characters are used to represent double quote marks. No two crawlers are going to behave exactly the same.
-
In my experience GWMT is always a bit later with reporting errors while Moz is there to notify you in a week. You should click though to the error in Moz to see the linking page and solve it.
If the link is on an external site, check google analytics for visitors coming at that url with a second dimension "referrer" or "source". If you can't find and change the broken link, you can redirect it untill you find out where it and solve it later :).
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
-
What does it mean when Moz KW explorer returns a negative keyword difficulty score (eg -2)?
I recently did a keyowrd difficulty lookup in Moz keyword explorer as usual and for the first time a saw several (out of 100s) of negative keyowrd scores (generally -2). Is this a bug, what does it mean?
Moz Bar | | FlagshipCons1 -
Moz bar chrome
Hi
Moz Bar | | Emanuele_Ricci
moz bar does not work on chrome, it works correctly on firefox.
The bar is there but not showing any data...
Any idea? It can be something that is blocking moz bar on chrome browser or what else????
Thanks1 -
Many more 404 being reported in GWT than MA
Hi I have been submitting MA crawl reports to clients developers post going live with a new site migration and instructing them to set up 301's for any 404's still reporting which they have now done (despite instructing them not to go live until all old url's mapped & 301'd to new replacement page, or HP if no replacement). 1) When i look in GWT crawl errors there has been a spike since going live with 660 'page not founds' being reported compared to x11 404's in MA. Could there be a 'lag' in GWT reporting and actually they have already been dealt with just not updated by GWT in this report and the MA report is more accurate ? Should i wait and see/or mark as fixed and see if return tomorrow, or tell dev to immediately investigate ? I have checked some samples links and they are going to 404 type pages so presume they are still broken and urgent issue dev must fix immediately ? 2) How long does it take aprox for the page authority to be transferred via a 301 redirect to a new page since i see some category pages that had good PA and have been 301'd to new category urls, are now showing a PA of just 1 !! Cheers Dan
Moz Bar | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Why isn't seo moz properly crawling my site?
In my campaign results, only 2 pages have been crawled, when there are many more. Also, when I do the on-page evaluation for my homepage and the main keyword, I get a grade of F, with a ton of errors that my page actually does not have. It's as if SEO moz is having trouble crawling through my site. Any ideas on this?
Moz Bar | | diplomajim0 -
Can I delete a SEO campaign in Moz, and start a new one for a different website?
Would be nice to know, as I'm limited to 5 campaigns, and the most important work is done for 2 site's, so I would like to switch that to 2 other website's. Regards,
Moz Bar | | mrblue910 -
Path of Moz Crawler Report?
Hi, I'm finding path of moz crawler report. Please tell me where I can find this tool?. Thanks
Moz Bar | | KLLC0