Knowing how to check website links is an important part of making sure your website is working properly and is up to par. Making sure your website links are not broken or dead is such an important part of managing your own website because broken links often look unprofessional and can even hinder your web search ranking. Broken or dead links are types of links that lead to pages that don’t exist. When you first come upon one of these broken or dead links, you usually find a page that gives you a 404 error page. This is a standard HTTP response that lets web users know they are unable to find the page they are looking for because the requested URL doesn’t exist.
The problem with having these broken links on your website or blog is that it makes it difficult for your web viewers to find information they need to about your website. If they are unable to find the link, they will likely leave your website and go elsewhere for the information they need to find. Not only are broken links unprofessional on your website, but they also might interfere with your web host ranking on the search engines. This is why it is important to know how to check website links as well as keep them as up to date as possible. Having a poor web hosting ranking is a sure fire way to guarantee that almost no one will ever see your website. There are a few ways to learn how to check website links and how to go about doing it effectively for your website.
First, it depends on your web hosting provider and if you are instead hosting your website through a blogging platform like WordPress. If you are a WordPress user, it is a good idea to use a couple of plugins for your site to detect these broken links. One example is the Broken Links Checker. There are other WordPress plugins that you can use that also do the work for you when figuring out how to check website links. Some of these plugins include the 301 redirects and the Redirection plugin. All of these work by automatically redirecting broken or dead links to a set link. However, if you worry about having too many plugins on your WordPress blog, then you will most likely want to go about fixing your dead links manually. If you are a frequent poster with your WordPress blog, the more likely it is that you will have broken links. That is why it is important to learn how to check website links frequently to ensure the best and most reliable website for your readers and followers. You also want to make sure and rely on having the best web host ranking by fixing these links as often as possible.
There are also Google WebMaster Tools that are handy and efficient when you are learning how to check website links. Sometimes links are dead not because the page is no longer there. Instead, the link is broken because of a typo or misspelling when the link was first added. Using Google WebMaster Tools will help you in correcting the URLs and allows you to remove the individual pages from the Google search results. This is the best way to ensure the best web host ranking on search engines like Google and Yahoo!
To start out using the Google WebMaster tools to first detect these broken links, you will need to sign up for the Google WebMaster tools and then verify your site. Once you are signed up, click on the diagnostics menu from the left and select Crawl Errors. Click on the Not Found Category and then click to view which page contains the broken link. To make sure the URL is indexed in Google, you should copy and paste the correct URL in the Google search to see if the result comes up for the site. Once you find these broken links, it is time to remove them. Click on Site Configuration and again select Crawl Access. Now you can click on remove URL and New Removal Request. Type in the URL you want to be removed from Google. Then make sure the first option is selected and then click on Add. The URL you want to remove should now show up in the list. From this menu you can add more pages for removal if there is more than one. Now, click on submit removal request. This part of the process usually takes around 2 to 3 days for Google to completely remove the URL. From then, you should see an increase in your web host ranking. To make sure it has been removed, repeat the process to see if the URL is still there. If it is gone, you will know the issue has been resolved.
This is one of the best ways to do check website links manually. However, if you want something a bit easier you can always use outside applications like Xenu Link Sleuth, which can be downloaded to your Windows desktop. However, once the process is done, it is still a good idea to go and manually check the links to make sure they have been properly removed and your website has been fixed. This is a process that should be repeated often to ensure better web host ranking for your website. At least once a week or more depending on how often you are changing up your website, adding new links and posting content.
