How do I use the Broken Link Report?

To use this report you must:

  1. Click on Broken Link Reports.
  2. Select the desired month and year. The current month is the default.
  3. Choose your site if it is in the list.
  4. The report is split into two areas:
    • Column 1 is the page that is missing;
    • Column 2 is the page the user added that links to the broken link. These links also have the date and time that it was reported.

      Since these reports only show pages submitted by users, it gives a good indication the popularity of the missing link.

Why are there so many 404s?

The underlying reason we have 404: Missing Pages on sites is due to one of the following reasons:

  1. The site owner typed the wrong link in the first place.
  2. The page linked to was changed:
    • The page may have been deleted;
    • The page was renamed;
    • The site may have undergone a redesign and pages were moved.

How do I fix this?

You have a few methods to resolve a broken link:

  1. The easiest and most responsible thing to do is to handle the page request directly:
    • Correct the broken link on the page, so it now links to the new location.
    • Put in a redirect from the broken link to the new location. A 301 permanent redirect tells search engines to update that record.
    • For Drupal sites: see our instructions for Adding a Redirect and instructions for Adding Links and Documents.
  2. Contact everyone linking to you to update their sites and link to the correct link. This process is obviously much harder to do and puts a burden on others to resolve a page you most likely moved. You will have a tough time getting search engines to correct it with this method.
  3. You could have a "Smart 404 - missing page" handler put on your site, which redirects all page requests to something like a sitemap, or has some logic that redirects old pages to new pages. This is a bit more complicated for the average site owner.

If you have questions about 301 redirects, feel free to contact ITS HelpDesk. We would be happy to help you resolve the issue.

Scanning for Broken links?

Below are two free and simple tools you can use to scan websites for broken links:

Mac:
http://peacockmedia.co.uk/integrity/

Windows:
http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html

There are also tools built within many programs you already use:

Applications:
Dreamweaver (Mac and Windows)
Frontpage (Windows)
Sharepoint Designer (Windows)

Webmaster Tools

To get search engines to update their index, try the following: