Dead links-urls
-
What is the quickest way to get Google to clean up dead
link? I have 74,000 dead links reported back, i have added a robot txt to
disallow and added on Google list remove from my webmaster tool 4 months ago.
The same dead links also show on the open site explores.Thanks
-
thank you 410 was what i needed.
-
I had 3 inexperience developers, who did not how to write
the urls so they created many different versions. It is hard work out which is
the right version. I also have someone like BT after leavening there service 2
years ago they still seem to index my old links even though my domain is not
with them. They are all for 404 pages. -
I had 3 inexperience developers, who did not how to write
the urls so they created many different versions. It is hard work out which is
the right version. I also have someone like BT after leavening there service 2
years ago they still seem to index my old links even though my domain is not
with them. They are all for 404 pages. -
Can you offer clarification as to what you view as a "dead link"?
If you mean a link to a page on your site which no longer exists, then your options are as follows:
-
take John's advice and 301 the link to the most relevant page on your site
-
allow the link to 404. 404 errors are a natural part of the internet. You should be sure to have the most helpful 404 page possible. Include your site's normal navigation, a search box, most popular articles, etc.
Blocking pages in robots.txt is usually a bad idea and is more likely to add to the problem rather then fix it. If you do not block the page in robots.txt, Google would then crawl the page, see the error and remove it from their index. Because you block the page they can no longer view the page so they will likely leave it in for longer.
Google normally promptly removes web pages submitted with the URL Removal Tool. The tool is designed to remove pages which can damage your site or others. For example, if confidential information was accidentally published. It is not designed to be used to remove 74k pages because you decided to remove them from your website.
If these dead links are simply pages you removed from your site, I advise you to remove the robots.txt block and then decide to 301 them or allow them to 404. Google should then clean up the links within 30-60 days.
If you want to speed up the process as much as possible, there is one other step you can take. Set a 410 (Gone) code for the pages. When Google receives a 404 response, they are unsure if the page is simply temporarily unavailable so they keep it in the index. If they receive a 410 response, you are telling Google the page is GONE and they can update their index faster.
-
-
Are the links 404 pages or just expired content?
-
The links are index, i need them really cleaned up, not a
redirect, and users/customers find it frustrating -
You could try setting up a 301 redirect in htaccess.
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
-
A mass of spammy links pointing to our domain from dynu.net
Hi MOZ community! Need some help with some strange activity on the link profile of a website I manage... I have noticed since the 4th of August a mass of links pointing to one of our domains. It looks like some kind of attack from dynu.net. I am seeing 100s of different subdomains from this website in the Discovered and Lost area, with DA 1. They are linking to us from very low quality pages with no CSS, that includes just random text. Anybody seeing anything similar or from the same website? Our links report example: https://imgur.com/a/y7pAopJ Also, what is the correct process to deal with such instances? We have used Google's disavow in the past, but I have read that Google are quite proactive at recognizing spammy links, and webmasters don't really need to use that tool. Much appreciated! y7pAopJ
Moz Pro | | dqmedia0 -
Links to Your Site: No Data Available in Google Search Console
The site I am working on did not have their site submitted to Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools). I submitted the site and a sitemap that auto updates. Google is crawling the site daily (about 30 pages a day). Under Search Traffic > Links to Your Site it shows no data is availible. I thought it was because it was a newly submitted site, but it has been two months now. Moz seems to have the same issue. Moz does show inbound links, but their are some that we think should really help us that are not shown. For instance, the Dallas Morning News wrote this article. They have a high DA and PA. Also, iliveindallas.com has an article about us that is still on the front page. That was a few weeks ago but also does not show up on Moz or Google SC. We are trying to be selective about the links we are getting. That they are follow links from reputable sites. Worried that both Google and Moz are not showing them.
Moz Pro | | TapGoods1 -
Disavowing links and disavow tool
Hello, I have had a look on webmaster tools and Moz and can see lots of bad links on Moz only. I am thinking whether to disavow them and was wondering if you could you let me know if it is possible to have a look at your current disavow file? I do not currently know what links were included the previous time. Is there a way to check if there are any links in the file at all? I thought I would raise this question as there is a lot of negative info about the disavow tool.
Moz Pro | | SEM_at_Lees0 -
Tracking External Followed Inbound Links - Are We Getting Fooled?
This question is not about how to use SEOMOZ Link tools. It's about the numbers themselves and how their fluctuations are causing confidence issues.... My client wants to track inbound followed links over time. But as I understand it, this number will vary depending on the Linkscape crawling success (or even outages or partial crawls.) In the past few reports, we've had wild fluctuations which have made them very nervous. If my client wants to track inbound followed links over time, what SEOMOZ metric should we use for the most reliable progress checks?
Moz Pro | | scottclark0 -
Tool bar - Analyse page - Link data
Hi all, Need a little help to understand this link information, if you go to our toolbar it show 1.6 million links on 224 root domains. when you analyse the page using the Tool bar. the link data show the page as having over 3000 internal links but when you go page attributes it shows a more complementary 92 page links we have a menu to all our pages and I am wondering if this is being registered in its entirety
Moz Pro | | LocksOnline0 -
Competitive Link Analysis Tool?
Hi, I ran a competitive link analysis report today and back came quite a few domains that 2 or more of my 5 main competitors link from. Is it worth me submitting links to these sites? And would i be best served submitting my homepage URL or submitting a brand page such as Creative Recreation Trainers? I want to target that brand but don't want to do it if my main URL is better? Any ideas? See below my report. | Subdomain | Subdomain mR | Subdomain mT | # Competitors | # Linking Pages | Link Acquired |
Moz Pro | | YNWA
| t.co/ | 8.05 | 8.04 | 2 | <a>2</a> | |
| ww2.cox.com/ | 5.99 | 6.50 | 2 | <a>3</a> | |
| www.littlewebdirectory.com/ | 5.90 | 5.59 | 2 | <a>2</a> | |
| www.amazines.com/ | 5.69 | 5.66 | 2 | <a>3</a> | |
| svpply.com/ | 5.66 | 5.53 | 3 | <a>20</a> | |
| www.jayde.com/ | 5.64 | 5.68 | 3 | <a>4</a> | |
| www.pearltrees.com/ | 5.58 | 5.81 | 2 | <a>2</a> | |
| www.businessseek.biz/ | 5.52 | 5.51 | 2 | <a>3</a> | |
| www.a1articles.com/ | 5.50 | 5.22 | 3 | <a>9</a> | |
| www.linksilo.de/ | 5.48 | 5.23 | 2 | <a>15</a> | |
| www.alistsites.com/ | 5.46 | 5.24 | 2 | <a>38</a> | |
| www.the-free-directory.co.uk/ | 5.37 | 5.07 | 2 | <a>20</a> | |
| www.walhello.com/ | 5.30 | 4.97 | 2 | <a>2</a> | |
| www.quarkbase.com/ | 5.14 | 5.12 | 2 | <a>2</a> | |
| snipsly.com/ | 5.13 | 5.20 | 2 | <a>21</a> | |
| www.counterdeal.com/ | 5.12 | 5.07 | 2 | <a>2</a> | |
| www.01webdirectory.com/ | 5.03 | 5.03 | 2 | <a>2</a> | |
| www.2addlink.info/ | 4.92 | 4.58 | 3 | <a>4</a> | |
| www.fuk.co.uk/ | 4.64 | 5.00 | 3 | <a>20</a> | |
| www.final-fantasy.us/ | 4.63 | 4.77 | 2 | <a>2</a> | |
| oyax.com/ | 4.42 | 4.61 | 2 | <a>4</a> | |
| www.touchretail.co.uk/ | 4.33 | 4.21 | 2 | <a>4</a> | |
| tptbtv.cold10.com/ | 4.27 | 4.86 | 3 | <a>1</a> | |
| www.mastbusiness.com/ | 4.23 | 4.34 | 2 | <a>2</a> | |
| www.competitionhunter.com/ | 4.16 | 4.21 | 2 | <a>6</a> | |0 -
Discrepancies in link reports from SEOMoz and OSE
Hello, I am trying to understand the link profile of my site. In the competitive analysis from SEOMoz, it shows 22K+ of links, with about 900+ being external followed links and 800+ internal. Webmaster tools shows a similar number of external followed links, but the link report from OSE only shows about 150 external followed links. This brings up several questions: Where is this 22K total links coming from? Why is there such a difference in the SEOMoz competitive analysis and the OSE report? Why does the OSE report show some links as not followed, while Webmaster tools lists them as followed? Am new to the off-page aspects of SEO, and I have to say the discrepancy in data from different tools is by far the most challenging thing for me. Would welcome general advice on this topic as well. Thank you!
Moz Pro | | LynnMarie0 -
How often does the competitive link checker get updated?
I just found a link in the competitive link checker that links to a couple of my competitors. The checker says that i do not have a link on that page, but there is one.. i recently (last week) obtained that link. So that raises the question: how many times is the competitive link checker updated? kind regards
Moz Pro | | JarnoNijzing0