Discovering broken links to my site
-
How do I find out if other websites are trying to link to my website using a misspelled URL or broken link?
-
One extra resource is this article
http://moz.com/blog/set-it-and-forget-it-seo-chasing-the-elusive-passive-seo-dream
It gives a little more info in researching broken links from other sites, and even gives a great explanation of using the levenshtein distance to automatically correct incoming broken links on the fly.
-
:))
-
Beat me to the punch as I was writing up my response. Thumbs up to you for a good answer that was similar to mine.
-
Depends on the way in which they misspelled things. If they got your domain name correct but messed something up after the slash (i.e. mysite.com/TyposHappne) then you will likely see a notice in Google Webmaster Tools of a 404'd page. At which point you could either ask the webmaster at the other site to fix the link or you could 301 the 404's page to the correct URL. If the incorrect link spells your domain name wrong... well then there's really no easy way to find it. You could potentially run a crawl test on a website that you know does link to you on other pages to see if the test brings up notices of broken links and then check if those broken links were meant for your site. Beyond that I don't believe you can do anything except hope the site administrator or their SEO runs their own tests to check for broken links and then fixes them accordingly.
-
One of the best way to check links that comes to your site is to use backlink checker software (open site explorer). If the main url is mis-spelt i don't think you can find out using the software as the url wouldn't point to your website at all. If you requested the link your self from a website, you can only find out by visiting the website and checking the link.
To check the broken links, I use broken link checker software and i do redirect or fix the links so if there are any links coming through to those pages it'll be fixed or redirected. I use brokenlinkcheck.com or screaming frog to check broken links.
I hope that helps.
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
-
Same person on my site, every day, for over 6 months??
I watch my Google analytics real time while I work and for the last 6 months, I've had one person on my site consistently during every Monday to Friday. It's only the home page there go on, it never shows they look anywhere else. But it's starting to concern me a little since it's been going on for so long. Does anyone have an idea what they could be doing? I do my own SEO, there is no one else working on my site. Thanks in advance!
Reporting & Analytics | | Coppell0 -
Difference between External links and anchor text?
What is the exact meaning of external links & anchor text and what is different between these?
Reporting & Analytics | | surabhi60 -
If Links not in GWT does that mean they havent been Indexed yet?
Hi we have had some success recently with increased rank positions, so I am trying to find our what's caused it? Am I correct in thinking that if google hasnt listed any new links in my GWT account that it hasnt indexed them yet and therefore not impacting my rankings? Thanks Ash
Reporting & Analytics | | AshShep10 -
Do target underscore blank links adversely effect Google analytics
Good morning from 17 degrees C about to rain again wetherby UK... On this page http://business.leedscityregion.gov.uk/invest/sectors/ there are a number of links that pop open new windows despite being internal links 😞 My question is please... "If an internal link to a site is set to _blank and pops open a new window are there any detrimental affects to google analytics tracking e.g. increased exits etc" Any insights welcome 🙂
Reporting & Analytics | | Nightwing0 -
Any thoughts on why Nextag and MonsterMarketPlace are linking to our site?
I'm looking in WMT at the crawl errors and I noticed that our website has gotten a lot of Not Found crawl errors that seem strange. A lot of these not found pages are Display URLs that I use in PPC advertising, but not actual redirects (i.e. explorica.com/EducationalTrips). When I looked at how these links were being found, the inbound links were coming from Nextag.com and monstermarketplace.com, two sites that our company has never had a relationship with. We're an educational travel company, so we'd have no reason to. When I followed the links, it looks like it's coming from their "Sponsored Links," but these aren't Google or Bing Ads. We don't even advertise on the content network. Example link: http://www.monstermarketplace.com/starters-and-alternators/alternator-motorola-style-12v-51a-10376 (the ads do rotate so my site might not appear when you check it out). Anyone ever had experience with this type of issue?
Reporting & Analytics | | Explorica0 -
Should you get a new Google Analytics account if your site has a new domain after a site redesign/new development?
We recently developed a new site for a client and they have opted to move forward with a domain change. Should we create a new Google Analytics account for the new site?
Reporting & Analytics | | TheOceanAgency0 -
Why is Webmaster Tools not Linking Correctly Google Analytics?
I have a global site with .com as the US site and then /country for all other markets i.e. .com/uk .com/de etc. Each site has it's own WMT profile. Each site has it's own GA profile. Since Google added Search Engine Optimization to the GA interface, I can't track these sites separately under this new feature. It seems to me that it can only be associated with a single WMT profile at a time or rather that WMT can only be associated with a single GA profile at a time. The numbers for the UK and US site are identical, but when I try and link the UK WMT account with GA it removes it from the US profile and vice versa.
Reporting & Analytics | | Red_Mud_Rookie0 -
Site speed not being reported accurately?
We're constantly on the lookout for site speed, and Google's Webmaster tools are saying that we're really really slow (on the order of 5-15 seconds per page). But the site NEVER feels that slow, and lots of other tools say we're in the 3-5 second range. Further, we've implemented literally 100% of Google's suggestions, and all we have are ad units that now render using Googles Async ad loader, further reducing time to interactivity. Could Google be dinging us in search results for this? Here's an example page that they said loaded in 200+ seconds (!?!) http://hark.com/clips/kwkdqqtzsg-terran-nuclear-launch-detected Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | TheIronYuppie0