Can IÂ track my website to find broken links and other missed opportunities?
The easy answer – Yes. There are plenty of tools out there that can help you find out all kinds of great information about your website – and most of them are free! In fact, the search engines want us to track our sites and improve them. The better our sites perform, the better we rank overall. Let’s take a look at two of them.
Google Webmaster Tools
Google has a terrific tool in their Webmaster Central area. These Webmaster Tools are terrific for finding links that don’t work and other problems within your website.
First thing you need to do is sign in (with a Google ID) and verify your website.
Once inside, you’ll want to add and verify your website. There are several ways to verify your site. They are all listed on the verification page.
One inside, you’ll see all kinds of information about your website, including a full list of links that are broken or otherwise invalid. Find and fix – good stuff.
Xenu Broken Link Checker
Another great tool for finding broken links is the Xenu broken link finder. Install this little program our your PC, run it against your URL, and it will produce a nice little list of broken links for you.
No matter what tool you use to find them, broken links need to be fixed. They aren’t helping your users, and the search engines don’t like that. Get them fixed in short order!