Search Engine Optimisation Web Log (BLOG)
Editor: Matt Paines

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Google lists links in 404 fix

Webmasters and search optimisers have been crying out for it and now it's here. Google has started to report the source URLs of broken links in its crawl errors feature in Webmaster Tools.
 
The new tool will make the tedious job of tracking down broken links a snap by adding a Link From column in its 404-error report, from which webmasters can get a list of the URLs of the web pages that supply invalid links to their sites.
 
The feature will be a valuable tool in SEO, as fewer broken links mean more web traffic coming through, higher page rank through a greater number of valid links, a better user experience and allowing Googlebot to crawl more pages.
 
Registered users will be able to download the report into a spreadsheet and sort it to identify and fix their own site's broken internal links.
 
Webmasters and search optimisers will still be left with the same old problem of how to get broken external links fixed.
 
Nevertheless, the tool still helps them to track down the offending sites more quickly and could prove useful in implementing a page redirect regime.
 
Microsoft Live Search also recently bolstered its webmaster tools with 404 reporting, but has yet to go the same stage further by listing source URLs.

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