Did you know that you can easily use Google Webmaster Tools to fix crawl errors on your web site? This way, you can make sure more of your links go to where they are suppose to so your visitors are not getting the doomed 404 error as much. I have been going through my old Web Hosting Show posts for the last few weeks fixing a lot of old errors, so figured I would show you how I got things fixed up.
First, you will want to make sure you have set up a Google Webmaster Tools account for your domain. It is free and easy to do. Once you have the basic statistics up and running, check under Crawl errors:
As you see, Google has found 36 pages that are pulling the proverbial 404 on visitors. Next, I want you to click the “Not found” link so we can find out how to fix the problem at hand.
This next page should show you all your crawl errors.
You get the basic information you need to get the problem fixed. Google will tell you the page address that should be there, the kind of error it is, where this page is being linked from, and the date the error was detected.
Please Note: These changes you make will not be updated live to the list. So even if you fix all the errors, and you see them still coming up in Google Webmaster Tools, don’t think you did something wrong. Just wait for Google to crawl though your pages and the links in question again. Might take anywhere from a week to a month.
Now, if you click on one of the “Linked From” links, you should see the specific pages on the web that are causing the 404.
Here you can see three pages are trying to link to a page that does not exist on my web site anymore (due to me changing from Blogware to WordPress many years ago). I need to go in and edit these three pages if I can and update or remove the link in question.
I hope that helps serve as an introduction to fixing your crawl errors within Google Webmaster Tools. This service that Google providers all web site owners is one that is often overlooked, and deserves more credit than it gets out there today at helping you troubleshoot common web site problems.
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