In my point of view, usually when I broke a thing I can’t use it anymore or it’s useless unless I fix it. Why I share that one? Since I am going to emphasize what broken links are, we’ll see if those are truly useless or can it still be fix.
First let’s start with the impression on broken links.
Broken links /404 error page/Page not Found leads to:
• Making a site looks unattended. It is like a house with no owner cleaning for, so what do you think if it’s unclean, would you wanted to stay on that? To make a website more updated it’s important to check those 404 links.
• Affects user experience. Readers will get out from a site or makes them follow a link for nothing. It will actually lead to reader’s disappointment when they click a link and they get nothing, if that would happen they might leave that site.
• Issues in crawling. This is actually important especially when you see a page that is essential for you for example www.site.com/esential instead of www.site.com/essential , there is a misspelling here where in according to Google this could happen if someone intended to link to you and made a misspelling. You can actually read more about this on if 404s can hurt a site? by Google webmaster central.
After having the impression for 404s, let’s shift to a Competitor POV. What if you have found a site same with your niche having broken links can you benefit from their rot? It is actually a YES and that is how broken link building works.
Actually in real life, sometimes due to so many tasks that need to finish, sometimes webmaster forgot the aspect of checking their website condition and there are some pages or links from their blog rolls that turned out into a 404 one or not found. And who says that no one can benefit from these 404s? Mind you even now more are talking about this just search about broken link building . Since it’s also a good way of helping out webmasters to fix what they haven’t notice yet.
Thanks also to the guide written by Melanie Nathan, where in when it comes to broken link building she is expert on this one. She gave me an inspiration that broken links are not waste. And here is some resources:
• Reciprocity Link Building Method
• Interview from citation labs
So, what you will need:
• List of your competitor sites especially those having blog rolls or resources or links.
It must be a list of sites relevant to your niche
For example I search for “SEO blog + inurl:links”
• Tools for broken linkbuilding:
Opensiteexplorer – check a site similar in your niche and look for its top pages and find for its 404 external links.
Check my links Chrome Plug-in –use to check website that you have visited, just click the button and you’ll see the red ones are broken links.
W3C Link Checker –this can also identifies those pages having 404 status.
Screaming Frog –you can export here the list of 404 broken links. Just simply download the tool and its for free.
Xenu’s Link Sleuth –just simply the download this application and same as scream frog you can find broken links.
Dead URL –allows you to find broken links and even links to website that has been deleted, just simply click the revive button.
Way back machine – helps you find out what the 404 content originally was wherein it can able to help you in content creation process.
• An awesome tool for finding blogrolls
Buzzstream –just simply drop the blog site that you wanted to check and go and you’ll see that it is going to expand the links on blogrolls.
Need to consider the following:
• PR (Page rank)
• MozRank
• Domain Authority
• Age of Site/blog site
• Must no sign of spam
• Social buttons
• Awesome page design
• Must not have over 1,000 links on page
Then what will happen if you’ll find dead links, if you are using a tool it is essential that you are going to recheck it and find out if it’s a real 404. Simply just send those lists to webmaster that there is an issue with his site. On the contact or about us page just look for the email and find the admin or owner of the website.
And you can simply replace the content of the page having 404 and the plus factor is that you can take advantage of that wherein they might approve your site suggestion and added your links on their sources. Although you spent ample time here but you know that if you are working hard for this one you can truly see the gains of your effort and it will be repaid.
For more awesome and comprehensive reference, see it below:
Ultimate Broken Link Building Resources – by citation labs
What if 404 is on your site? What will you do?
Check regularly your website status. You can simply check it through using the tool or using the crawl errors feature of webmaster tool and it is simply easy to find. When it comes to your blog you can monitor it through using plug in like broken link checker of WordPress .
There are simply lots of tools available that is helpful to our site and tools that can make us gain advantage over the competition. As long as you are resourceful and open minded and curious about some things you’ll find that this adventure is truly awesome. Have you tried it? Please share your thoughts below!
