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  4. Best free tool to check internal broken links

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Best free tool to check internal broken links

Technical SEO
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  • RikkiD22
    RikkiD22 last edited by Oct 7, 2011, 8:39 AM

    Question says it all I guess. What would your recommend as the best free tool to check internal broken links?

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 5
    • Fahaddd
      Fahaddd last edited by Aug 3, 2017, 2:52 PM Jul 9, 2017, 3:33 PM

      [Spammy comment removed by forum moderator.]

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote -2
      • sammond
        sammond last edited by Jun 4, 2014, 11:37 PM Jun 4, 2014, 11:37 PM

        How awesome is that Screaming Frog tool? 🙂

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • KeriMorgret
          KeriMorgret @Blue-Horizon last edited by Oct 21, 2013, 1:27 PM Oct 21, 2013, 1:27 PM

          Hey Kevin,

          If you download the CSV report, we should list the referring page in the CSV. I know it'd be better to have it on the on-screen report, and it is on our wish list, but you should be able to see the info in an export.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • evolvingSEO
            evolvingSEO @Blue-Horizon last edited by Oct 21, 2013, 12:11 PM Oct 21, 2013, 12:11 PM

            Hi Kevin

            Thanks - yes, although I am a Moz Associate, out of full transparency I agree with that you are saying. It is not a tool I specifically use with Moz, and do prefer Screaming Frog for the exact functions you are referring to. Screaming Frog will tell you what pages the bad links are on.

            You can definitely pass this on to the product team as a feature request on this page. Personally I love tools like their analytics, keyword difficulty, rank tracker, open site explorer, but I agree from this aspect the crawler is not the strongest, and I would suggest supplementing with Screaming Frog (as I do).

            -Dan

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Blue-Horizon
              Blue-Horizon @evolvingSEO last edited by Oct 21, 2013, 12:00 PM Oct 21, 2013, 12:00 PM

              Dan, although I love me some MOZ the crawl diagnostics kinda suck... all they do is report errors but they don't give any insight on where the bad link is originated... it merely shows the page which is 404ed, which is a BIG FAT WASTE OF TIME.

              You guys should know that we need to know WHICH PAGE THE BAD LINK IS ON, and furthermore WHAT LINE OF CODE HAS THE BAD LINK. Who cares about the broken page!?!?!?!?!?

              evolvingSEO KeriMorgret 2 Replies Last reply Oct 21, 2013, 1:27 PM Reply Quote 3
              • evolvingSEO
                evolvingSEO @Blue-Horizon last edited by Oct 20, 2013, 10:05 PM Oct 20, 2013, 10:05 PM

                Yes when you set up a campaign with Moz Analytics, Moz will crawl your website and return a whole report of suggestions. It will start a sample crawl which gets returned to you pretty quickly, and a full crawl a little bit thereafter. It will report things to you like 400 errors etc.

                You can also use the Moz Crawl Test (PRO only as well) which will return to you the HTTP status code of each URL crawled.

                Optionally, you can also use Screaming Frog SEO Spider (free up to 500 pages to crawl, paid for bigger sites).

                -Dan

                Blue-Horizon 1 Reply Last reply Oct 21, 2013, 12:00 PM Reply Quote 0
                • Blue-Horizon
                  Blue-Horizon last edited by Oct 20, 2013, 6:09 PM Oct 20, 2013, 6:09 PM

                  Does anyone have any clue on how I can check my internal broken links using MOZ tools?

                  evolvingSEO 1 Reply Last reply Oct 20, 2013, 10:05 PM Reply Quote 0
                  • RetailMeNotFr
                    RetailMeNotFr last edited by Nov 30, 2012, 7:24 AM Nov 30, 2012, 7:24 AM

                    Hello,

                    If you have a full Sitemap, transform it to a .txt by putting only URL (Excel can do that easily) try Screaming Frog SEO on list mode, which is free regardless of the number of links.

                    Even if you search a free tool, I strongly recommand to invest 99£/year on this tool, it's worth it.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • IPINGlobal54
                      IPINGlobal54 @RikkiD22 last edited by Nov 15, 2011, 12:15 PM Nov 15, 2011, 12:15 PM

                      Ok, first, does the url with /errors/error_404 (without the query string) exist?

                      Also - are you using something to create your 404 pages for tracking purposes?

                      The query string on the url would appear to be stating the referring url anyway - hence ?q=-i3 basically equates to the page /i3

                      At a guess - it could be there is a script running to create logs on specific 404's, or create a new log each time one occurs - if this folder is visable to the crawlers, it would get spidered and subsequently the problem would arise.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • RikkiD22
                        RikkiD22 @RikkiD22 last edited by Oct 7, 2011, 11:37 AM Oct 7, 2011, 11:37 AM

                        Yeah I tried that but the URL in the URL coloumn shows for example:

                        /errors/error_404?q=-i3

                        and the Referrer shows:

                        /-i3

                        Neither page exists and so I do not know where the page which contains this broken link is...

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • IPINGlobal54
                          IPINGlobal54 @RikkiD22 last edited by Oct 7, 2011, 11:30 AM Oct 7, 2011, 11:30 AM

                          It does, when you get the report, filter column D marked "4XX (Client Error)" and you will see your 404's there - further along in the report you will also be able to see referring url which will show you which page is linking to it.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • RikkiD22
                            RikkiD22 @IPINGlobal54 last edited by Oct 7, 2011, 11:12 AM Oct 7, 2011, 11:12 AM

                            Checked out the tool I just linked to on here and it doesn't include broken link data

                            IPINGlobal54 RikkiD22 3 Replies Last reply Nov 15, 2011, 12:15 PM Reply Quote 0
                            • RikkiD22
                              RikkiD22 @IPINGlobal54 last edited by Oct 7, 2011, 9:18 AM Oct 7, 2011, 9:18 AM

                              Is the the custom crawl tool on here you are referring too? http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/crawl-test

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • IPINGlobal54
                                IPINGlobal54 last edited by Oct 7, 2011, 9:09 AM Oct 7, 2011, 9:09 AM

                                Custom crawl right here on SEOmoz, or you could use Xenu

                                RikkiD22 2 Replies Last reply Oct 7, 2011, 11:12 AM Reply Quote 1
                                • RikkiD22
                                  RikkiD22 @evolvingSEO last edited by Oct 7, 2011, 9:03 AM Oct 7, 2011, 9:03 AM

                                  Hi Dan,

                                  Thanks for that tool. It works great and especially like that it works in Chrome.

                                  Do you however know of a tool which would do this site wide rather than per page?

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                  • evolvingSEO
                                    evolvingSEO last edited by Oct 7, 2011, 8:43 AM Oct 7, 2011, 8:43 AM

                                    This tool is a great extension for Chrome

                                    Check My Links

                                    RikkiD22 1 Reply Last reply Oct 7, 2011, 9:03 AM Reply Quote 5
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