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Finding broken links / resources by topic
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Hi fellow mozzers!
In an effort to ensure we're exploring every avenue when launching our new website, I was hoping to find some useful broken links / resources that we could incorporate into our link building.
We have used the standard tools for this (W3C, Xenu etc), but they all seem to have the same issue in that they reveal all the missing links on a site (although some don't actually tell you the page they are on), but you still have to sort them to see if the links/ resource is related to your theme.
When you're on a niche site, this obviously isn't an issue, but on a site like Mashable (to use the example given in a recent SEOmoz blog) it could result in wading through hundreds of links to find one relevant one right at the end.
Is there a tool that allows you to specify what theme links you are looking for from a site, or better yet one that allows you to check multiple sites for multiple missing themed links in one go?
Or is the best way to export the list and just search the document for certain keywords?
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What about searching for articles about care homes on BBC then seeing if any of those have missing links on an article-by-article basis? If you're lucky, they may also have a tag or a section that fits closely enough with your topic that you can find a listing of all of the articles that are withing that tag/category and just review those.
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Hi Chris,
Thanks for your response. I have used both Xenu and Screaming Frog before, and they are great for searching a whole site within your niche where every broken link / missing resource is an opportunity. This is probably an easier thing to explain using an example:
We do work for a chain of care homes. If I go to, say www.carehomes.co.uk and check for missing links, I know that all the results will be an opportunity to make contact and build a relationship with a webmaster in the care home niche. So there's no need to filter these, but rather just to work my way through the list trying to build as many valuable new contacts as possible.
But if I run a missing links search on the BBC, it may bring back hundreds or thousands of results, but only one or two will be related to the care homes industry and therefore present an opportunity to reach out. So that's the aspect I'm enquiring about - going to a site that covers a range of topics and quickly finding opportunities within that relate to my niche.
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I recommend that Chrome is part of your link building tool kit and get a broken link checker, you'll also find that visiting web pages with images off in Chrome will speed up your prospecting efforts. I can see you want to search a whole website for a broken link then try a tool like Screaming Frog or Xenu.
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Hi Jon,
Thanks for getting involved - having read your great blog, it's cool to get your take. Love the idea about then building relationships with all the others who link to that missing URL.
But my question remains the same - while I understand that there's more to it than the initial link, and there are greater opportunities when it comes to relationship building as well as link building, I am keen to get a handle on the best way to find missing resources, broken links etc within a certain niche; so I know how to use search modifiers to look up various sites, resources etc within our niche, I'm less clear on how to go to larger sites (BBC, wikis, Mashable etc) that cover many topics and find out whether opportunities are available within my niche.
Also, is there a Firefox friendly tool that's similar to DHP?
Thanks for any extra help you can give!
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+1 for Chris!
Sorry I just got to this question, but Nick, as Chris said, there's much more value than the initial link you get. Granted that some opportunities are really only worthwhile for that specific link, most opportunities for broken links should be turned into something far greater - a relationship.
Also, when you find URLs of broken resources, go to Open Site Explorer and plug those URLs in. Find other people linking to that same broken resource, and reach out to them as well. Ideally you should start an excel spreadsheet of different pages linking to broken resources, so as you come across more broken links, you can add even more prospects. In the end, you should never run out of sites to do some BLB on.
Hope this helps Nick!
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Hi Chris,
Thanks for your reply. I had stumbled across that site earlier and found it to be very useful. And yes, I agree that the tactic is a great way to outreach and relationship build as well as a simple like for like - although the issue of quickly finding such sites within a certain niche still applies.
It seems that Domain Hunter Plus gets some of the way there, but I'm running Firefox rather than Chrome, so any alternatives would be cool.
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Hi Nick,
Broken Link building isn't just about getting a broken link replaced with your link. It's also a tactic to build a relationship with a blogger/webmaster to later pitch them a proposal for a link.
Jon Cooper (@pointblankseo) loves this technique so be sure to hop over to his blog
http://pointblankseo.com/creative-broken-link-building
He also recommends a few broken link tools too
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