Not too long ago, I was checking on my blog stats and saw that my comment numbers were through the roof.
Getting close to 27,000 comments.
Sure it sounds impressive, but imagine responding to such an astronomical numbers of comments?
What about linking out to that many sites?
What about controlling spam?
What about broken links?…
Broken Links: Why Bother?
I know, I know – you’re overwhelmed, overworked, and, let’s face it, underpaid.
Why bother with broken links?
1. Reader Experience
When your readers click around and see 404 pages popping up, they start to question your credibility.
To them, if your site has broken links, your product is unlikely to be error-free.
You end up losing readers and potential customers.
2. SEO Considerations
No, Google won’t penalize your site just because you have a few broken links.
Google’s John Mueller in a response to a Google Webmaster Help thread question about broken links:
Googlebot isn’t going to lose sleep over broken links…
If you find things like this, I’d fix it primarily for your users, so that they’re able to use your site completely.
On the other hand, Google Webmaster Guidelines clearly states:
Check for broken links and correct HTML.
Hmmm….
Let’s think it through.
When Google bot graces you with crawling/indexing your site, it gives you but a few seconds of its precious time (to learn more, read about how Google works.)
Since it follows every links it encounters, sending it to a bunch of dead ends (broken links) is… well, not the best use of your crawl budget.
Broken Link Checker: the Obvious Solution to Broken Links
What is Broken Link Checker?
Broken Link Checker is a free WordPress plugin that does exactly what it implies to do: monitors your blog for broken links.
It happens to be one of the most popular WordPress plugins, so it comes as no surprise that most bloggers use it to keep their broken links in check.
I, too, have Broken Link Checker installed at Traffic Generation Café.
As of the writing of this post, it shows I have only 16 broken links on my blog.
Even after I used its “nuclear option” and re-checked all the links on my blog (which, by the way, tremendously slowed everything down for a couple of hours), it came up with 29 broken links.
Yet another broken link tool, DrLinkCheck, found 78 broken links in just the first 1,000 links it scanned.
Sounds like Broken Link Checker isn’t all it’s meant to be…
What Broken Link Checker Misses
CommentLuv Links
Broken Link Checker does NOT check CommentLuv links.
Thus, even though the ‘Name’ link is not broken, the CL link might still be – the post might’ve been deleted or moved.
Comment Replies
What happens when you delete a comment with a broken link?
The reply to that comment stays behind AND links to the original comment (that no longer exists!), thus creating a broken link.
Links Within Comments
Broken Link Checker doesn’t check the links left within the body of a comment.
Other problems with Broken Link Checker
But wait, there’s more!…
Broken Link Checker is a Plugin
Broken Link Checker is designed to run in the background checking for broken links every so often, which basically means it slows down your blog, hugely impacting both your Reader’s experience and search engine rankings (fast sites rank better!)
It Eats Up Your Memory
Since I have so many links on my blog (mostly from comments, of course), Broken Link Checker file size is over 5 MB as of right now.
It’s basically eating up my resources while not doing such a good job at tracking broken links!
Even More Causes for Broken Links on Your Site
Yes, I am a geek…
I love, love, love digging up the kinds of things that completely eat up my precious time and fascinate me at the same time!
As I was searching for more sources of broken links on my blog, I found the following:
Guest Authors
Even though I don’t publish many guest posts, I still have 53 past guest authors.
Turns out that at least 4 of them (haven’t checked them all yet) shut down their blogs.
Yet here I am, linking to them within my content and comments… What a waste!
Spam Comments
Obviously, you should never approve comments that are after one thing – a backlink from your blog.
Easier said than done!
When I first started blogging, the sound of crickets drove me NUTS… thus, I approved every comment – just about.
Now, some years later, I’m appalled at the number of spam comments published at TGC during the first couple of months of its existence…
Trackbacks
I firmly believe that we shouldn’t publish trackbacks in our comment sections.
Wondering what trackbacks and pingbacks are?
First of all, over 90% of them are spam (an educated guesstimate.)
Secondly, there’s a question of reciprocal linking when you publish trackbacks: they link to your post, you link back to theirs…
Blogger.com Blogs
This goes for any free blogging platform, not just Blogger.
The “ditch rate” for these blogs tends to be much higher since it doesn’t cost a penny to start a blog.
Unfortunately, those platforms don’t always generate a hard 404 (not found) error when a blog is suspended, moved, or abandoned, so you end up linking to a bunch of “This account has been suspended” or “This blog has moved” pages.
Autoblogs
This one was yet another accidental discovery.
While going through the old comments at TGC, I occasionally thought, “Haven’t seen him for a while; I wonder how he’s doing…”
So I’d click over to the blog just to discover that the person had stopped blogging… adding to the ever-increasing rate of failed blogs… 😟
During one such check-up, I discovered that one of my blogging friend’s blog had become a part of an autoblogging network!
In other words, all links from my blog to his became bad neighborhood links… and that aint’ good!
Broken Link Checker Alternatives
All of the above screamed ‘quest, Quest, QUEST!‘ at me… (I told ya… GEEK! 🤣)
Yet in the world of the tool abundance and even oversaturation, I STILL had a very hard time finding a (free) broken link tool that checked ALL broken links on my blog (too much to ask, apparently…)
Another requirement for a good broken link checking tool: it needs to show me exactly WHERE the link is located, as opposed to simply telling me that I have a broken link.
Here are some potential candidates
DrLinkCheck
First of all, I have to show you the screenshot of the site – talk about memorable branding!
DrLinkCheck.com did a great job with one exception: only the first 1,000 links were free.
After that, you can increase the limit to 5,000 links for $10 (valid for 60 days.)
So, if you have a small site, this tool is great.
For larger sites, you need to keep looking.
BrokenLinkCheck.com
This tool does everything – for up to 3,000 pages per site.
This is the one I use to check for broken links at Traffic Generation Café.
Xenu’s Link Sleuth
This is a free downloadable software that scans your site from your desktop.
There are no limitations as to the number of pages or links and there are many other great uses for it.
Take a look at these two great posts to learn more:
- Xenu’s Link Sleuth – More Than Just A Broken Links Finder – SEOMoz.org
- 3 Not-So-Obvious But Totally Awesome Uses Of Xenu Link Sleuth For Webmasters – MakeUseOf.com
Or
Note: the download page is not very well-designed, but don’t be concerned: it’s a very well-respected and known tool.
Also, it works for Windows only.
If you are an avid Mac user, like I am, here’s a Mac alternative:
Integrity Broken Link Checker
It doesn’t get any more thorough than this free broken link checker for Macs.
I also found two services that won’t just run a scan of your site, but will monitor your links on a continuous basis.
Just like Broken Link Checker does, just a lot better.
Broken Links Be Gone
At the moment, my comment count dropped down to under 20,000 comments.
That’s about 7,000 broken links and/or bad neighborhood and spam comments!
So far I’ve only checked about half of my blog…
I am getting there… (glass half full!…)
Broken Links Marketing Takeaway
Moral of the story:
1. DON’T approve any comment that even smells like spam.
2. DON’T publish trackbacks.
3. DO monitor your site at least once a month; make sure you keep it manageable and not let it go like I did (out of ignorance, but nonetheless).
4. DO take care of your broken links – outsource it if can.
And DO give this post a shout on social media!
From Ana with
Hahaha… I put my complaining days away a long time ago, Ana 🙂
I appreciate all that life brings me, and ask for more 😛
Ana, I’m honored to leave a “non-spam” comment here, and I’m really glad you linked so much gold here.
I don’t have anywhere near the comment count you do yet, but I expect to, and I expect to benefit from the resources you’ve linked here.
This is probably the most thorough review of link check tools/plug-ins on the net, and I can feel the love you poured into checking them all out.
I think the net could use more reviews like this 😀
(I also see a bunch of familiar faces in your shoutouts! Nice :D)
With your networking abilities, it shouldn’t be long till you swim in comments, Jason.
Don’t complain about it when it happens. lol
Thanks, Ana. Learning from your experience I will try to keep it clean from the beginning. I added Broken Link Checker and found a few broken links (none of them through CommentLuv). My husband says he will look at the code and see if he can find anything wrong with the way Broken Link Checker interacts with CommentLuv and fix it if necessary. He thinks that it will be easier to fix the broken links with Broken Link Checker than with an external link checker like Dr. Link Check.
What a bonus to have an internet support team on call like this, Mary! lol
I agree it would be easier to have the Broken Link Checker learn to check CL links, but my other problem with it is resources. It definitely slows down a site when it does it’s check, plus it stores all that info in the database on your server.
I just forwarded your reply to my awesome on-call Internet support team, we’ll see what he says to that!
Do you pay him by the hour or did you work out a special arrangement? lol
I think that was a great decision, Jayne – preventing info overload and focusing on putting into practice what you already know.
I am going through a similar stage right now.
I was actually at your blog some weeks ago; looks like you are doing great!
oh no what a start to my day.
I have commentLuv on my site and I use broken links checker too. Ive been very happy in the knowledge that my site is safe from the broken links until you mentioned it doesnt check the commentluv links.
I just went back to the earliest comments and “shock horror” plenty sites have closed shop or moved posts so im givng out all those dofollow links to error 404 or as you mention a site that is taken over and become a bad neighbourhood.
Ths all sums up things that I have learned along the way… you dont get anything for free… well not usually anything that can do a thorough job and be worth its weight in gold. Time to get checking through some of the link checkers you mention.
Meanwhile back to checking all my comments URGHGHGH
🙂
Definitely not a fun thing to discover, Karen; hope you didn’t have plans for the next couple of days. lol
Once I too had to delete more than 10k comments due to comment duplication by a commenting plugin.From that onwards I have minimized the use of plugins on my site and quite happy with it.
Yes, plugins can definitely do a number on our sites!
I’m always aware of the need to find any broken links quickly, both to prevent annoying visitors, and to keep the search engines happy. The link checker I use on my WP blog is a plug-in by w-shadow.com. They say they “Detects links that don’t work, missing images, deleted YouTube videos and other problems.
Periodically checks links in posts, pages, comments, custom fields and the blogroll.”
I find it works very well for me.
Have you double-checked their results, Geoff?
I thought broken link checker worked just fine, until I used another tools and discovered all those broken links on my blog. lol
If it does indeed work, great!
Ana, broken link checker seems to work fine for me. I’ve never found a broken link that they haven’t notified me about. And those they do tell me about are genuinely broken. Having that it wouldn’t do any harm my double-checking all my links just to make sure, so perhaps DrLinkCheck could be a better solution.
Thanks for this information Ana. I love the tools you’ve mentioned, I just tried Dirlink checker and I only have 1 brokedn link, which I will fix. I will also give the the other tools a go. Thanks again for the tip.
Sounds like you are in good shape, Danielle.
Great post Anna to be honest I haven’t ran this sort of check on blog in awhile. I will work on that for now that I have a million resources to fall back on! Thanks for all you do.
I learned the hard way that this is the kind of thing I need to keep up with on a regular basis vs be stuck “catching up” for days.
Good to have you back, Steve.
Thanks for pointing out the limitations of Broken Link Checker. Love that DrLinkCheck. I second Arfan in giving a thumbs up to Screaming Frog, the Xenu-like tool.
Thanks, Emory.
Hey Ana,
I’ve been using broken link checker since I first set up my site I have been so side tracked by getting other tasks done that I didn’t even think about the plugins limitations.
I just tried Drlinkcheck and found some links that broken link checker didn’t detect, oops!
That’s the problem of running a business, Adam – we can’t be everywhere at the same time and let things slide here and there.
Now that it took me several days to clean up my broken link mess, I won’t make the same mistake.
Dr Link Check is great but you’ve found something even better, that’s amazing. I’ll delete broken link checker as it doesn’t work so well, and also Seo Ultimate has a link checker built in. I’ll have a look at the links you provided Ana. Thanks as usual. 😉
I find it a bit confusing the way SEO Ultimate does broken links, Andrea – too much sifting through.
I know what you mean, I’m still finding my way with all those options and why there are 404 errors every day in places I’ve never heard. And I’ve downloaded Xenu just to have another arrow to use. Have you ever heard about Link Examiner? I’ve found it through a link at searchenginejournal but I haven’t yet tested it.
Cheers!
I am not as concerned about external 404 errors (meaning broken links leading TO my blog), Andrea. The only time I ever worry about them is when I see one coming from an authority blog. Then I’ll make an effort to ask the originating blog to fix the error so that I can benefit from a solid link.
No, never heard of Link Examiner…
Just checking out Dr Link Checker, what an amazing tools, it gives me the first 1000 links for free for research purposes, this is amazing. I’ll have a bit more of a look in just a bit.
How many hours did you actually spent deleting all these comments?
Big shout out to Ileane Smith as well, she’s one of the best bloggers in the online spehere.
Still not done with it, Matt. Hard to catch up once you let it go.
How did your webinar go today?
Went very well, Matt – I’ll have the recording available soon.
I’ve had quite a few long days going through mine, Dan; join the party!
Loved the transparency with which you share how you’re working to maintain such a high quality blog. Thanks for showing exactly what the downsides are for Broken Link Checker and what to use instead.
I have had a very similar experience Ana. You are so excited in the beginning that people are coming by your blog. I learned in 2010 that there were spam bots attacking my blog. I will use the suggestions you have given here and I look forward to interacting with all the other blog owners you have listed here. Now I know why you wanted me to send my 3 best blog posts……:)
I only we knew what we know now when we started, huh?
You are very welcome, Danielle; thanks for sticking with me!
Thanks Ana for this incisive post on broken links.But i want to ask if any of these broken link software you mentioned do work for free blogger. or do free blogger don’t stand a chance of checking through broken links?
They work for any site.
Can you tell me Ana some of the examples of spam comments? I am not a spammer, but sometimes the site that I’ve been commenting on say my comments are spam. I am new in this field, that’s why I am reading and commenting on different sites.
Most of the times it’s not necessarily about what you say, Ersa. Akismet is the spam controlling plugin that many sites use and it’s very capricious.
It sends a lot of valid comments into spam. Happens to me all the time.
Is that so? I’ve read some articles that if the comments contain only Thanks! Great! Nice post! They’re spam. Haha! That’s why I’m avoiding those words to comment.
Spam plugins usually don’t flag such comments, Ersa, just because they have these phrases in them.
Bloggers do however.
I wouldn’t most likely approve a comment like that.
I have been experiencing similar broken links issue on my website. And this is very frustrating too! I think DrLinkCheck.com seems effective to get rid of this issue. The spam comments and guest authors are the main sources for the broken links on my site I think. Thanks for your useful tips! Hope this will be beneficial to get rid of the broken links.
You are very welcome.
Thanks for the quick review of tools to check for broken links. I prefer to try tools such as these with some understanding of what to expect. I tried out a couple of the tools listed and they were helpful.
And I do agree that it’s good policy to keep broken links to a minimum. If Google tracks something in webmaster tools, it’s a good idea to pay attention.
Thanks.
Very true, Myron – if Google says it’s important, then it is.
I didn’t realize that the comments could actually be a problem, although now that I read your article it seems kind of obvious. I recently got involved with this sort of stuff and am still learning about it and you have certainly gave me some new information today. Thank you.
Good thing you have me to tell you about these things, Joe. lol
Hi Ana,
Thanks for the tip with DrLinkCheck, I was worried and had to check my website. No broken links were the result.
Many broken links are usually found on sites with lots of comments, Lennart.
Glad yours is clean!
I tried DrLinkCheck and found broken links other sites had been telling me I had, but without offering a clue to where they were. I found 9 broken links and fixed them. Great free tool for a small site.
It’s amazing how many sites do just that: tell you you have something broken and nothing beyond that.
Thanks for the tip, Arfan – just downloaded it and will take a look.
Hey Ana- I tried out Dr.Linkcheck and found 113 broken links. I don’t see any sort of “fix this” option. Does the site just point out the broken links or can it help me clean them up?
@larryphoto
You have to click on the broken link – it’ll take you to the page the link is at, Larry.
You’ll have to find it from there.
Well, I did it. It took me a looooong time and I don’t have nearly the volume that you have going for you. I did use DrLinkCheck (and paid the $10 bucks). I tried the Integrity Link Checker and it confused me. It took a while to get into a rhythm for actually finding the offending links. A few weird ones I never found. And some links seemed perfectly good (maybe DrLink made a diagnosis when the blog was being used by the owner in some way?)
I have to admit I had worries. Every time I deleted a link from a post that was dead and then updated the post, was I creating too much pinging? (I have the MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer, but have this unfounded thought that it may be a bunch of hooey.) In other words, I worried that the act of all these changes and pinging – could it be a worse effect than leaving the broken links strewn around the blog? But I persevered.
One strange thing I noticed: many of the broken links were due to a peculiarity regarding CommentLuv links – specifically, links left that involved “http…feedproxy.google.com [followed by weird coding]” I wonder whether the CommentLuv user realized that was happening, and also how that happened.
I did it. Hoping it was for the best.
You did well, Richard.
As you said, it gets much easier once you “get into it”; you start recognizing spam, potential bad neighborhoods a lot better.
And don’t worry about over-pinging; MBP plugin does work well.
Yes, every once in a while, when any broken link checker scans a site that happens to be down at that very moment, it’ll show up as a broken link. However, by the time you actually get to it, the site is back up.
The “feedproxy” issue you talked about is basically Feedburner stealing people’s links. You can learn more about it in this post: http://kikolani.com/10-dreadful-mistakes-that-kill-your-comments.html
Hi, Ana.
Thank you for this post.
The Desktop Tool for Mac saved my day. I used Broken Link Checker but as you mentioned in your post, it slowed down the page and was useless.
Kind regards, Max
Glad to be of help, Max.
Hi, Ana! I didn’t know broken URLs from comments can harm a website from Google’s point of view. Since everybody is interested in SEO and SERP, your conclusion is quite alarming.
They definitely can, Jack.
I think as the number of comments on your site increases it eventually slows down your blog. Recently techcrunch reduced the number of comments that are displayed on the homepage. Which made a big difference to their blog load time.
I don’t usually read Techcrunch, Eddie – where on the home page do they display comments? I couldn’t find any…
But you are right; fewer links and comments do decrease the database size, thus helping the site to load more efficiently.
That’s me, Jim – the queen of making to-do lists considerably bigger. lol
18 links – not bad at all.
Some time ago for a few bucks I bought a subscription from BrokenLinkCheck.com – simply by contacting them. There is a contact link/form at their website. They provide kind of “constant” monitoring as well – by automated checks.
I am sure there’s a way for me to get their paid subscription, John; I just wish I didn’t have to work for it.
First off,
Congrats on the engagement you are receiving at your blog 🙂
Second, I never thought of this kind of stuff. I tried some of tools that you mentioned (of course, only the free ones, because I don’t really like spending money on SEO tools). And those are neat.
The only dead links found at my blog were from Digg Digg plugin (probably because mine is a new blog and second, Digg Digg just joined hands with Buffer).
Your tips are great (and I think they will help me in the future)
By the way, Ana, have you considered adding a start here page (I am just trying to experiment with all traffic generation techniques I can find right now; searching through your blog is not a good idea – because you have too much awesome stuff :D).
Anyways, thanks for the awesome read!
As your blog grows, Jeevan, you’ll definitely need to put these tools to use.
I’d love to put together a “Start Here” page; however, it’s a bit too overwhelming to even think about it right now.
Alright, thanks for the link to archives, Ana 🙂
It’s a pain in the neck, but needs to be done.
That’s how I feel at the moment, Michael. lol
Hey Ana,
Congratulations on the awesome success on your blog, my friend. You did Fantastic work with TGC. Love the new design.
Ahh checking broken links is a boring task and something that’s been in my to-do-list from a long time ;).
Keep up the rocking work, Ana!!
-Dev
So good to see you in my neck of the woods, Dev!
Working on a new blog?
🙂 Yup, BlogPreneurs is my new blog and will be launching it, in the Q2 of this year.
Look forward to it!
Thanks a lot Ana… I was not aware that the broken link checker plugin misses out the comment luv links, links within posts..etc etc
Will try the Drlinkcheck service …
You are welcome, Salman.
This information could not come at a better time for me Ana, thanks so much. I have been using a broken link plugin and I’m convinced that it’s the cause of performance issues on my site. It just finds far too many “broken links”. I am now going to try one or two of your recommendations above.
Always glad to be of help, Thomas.
Great post Ana. That’s why I enjoy your blog. I always learn something new. I try and check on the comments and trackbacks often, but I never thought about checking the links. That’s something I want to clean up.
Thanks, Benny – always a pleasure to see you around!
Absolutely smashing article, Ana.
I just came back from a site that is ranked very well, yet they allow the most awful spam comments imaginable.
You know the ones! The same comment entered time and time again, usually every word some silly buy this, buy that or buy something else(Many adult products—the site is blogging related)—-and much worse.
Broken links can become a real pain as they “leave breadcrumbs” across the web that will need to be retraced and repaired.
I had the experience before, thinking I had removed links before deleting content) those broken links left a trail behind them.
Link sleuth is quite a handy broken link checker, that managed to find some site issues for me that other more established tools missed.
“Breadcrumbs” is exactly what I am dealing with right now, Daniel.
What a pain, yet needs to be done!
When are you going to get yourself a gravatar, by the way?
Ouch! Ana, you just echoed Steve Scott’s thunderous(okay, politely spoken) words from a little while back.
Will add ” Add Gravatar” to my growing list of site chores.
I would like to try one of those caricaturist ones(Cartoonish image of myself) It may also help to avoid security issues.
Oh, and stalkers………just kidding.
Daniel.
Send me your pic; I’ll do it for you!
Thanks for the very useful post. I’ll have to check my links now. Alas, when will I find the time?
And your Blog Commenters Hall of Fame is a great way to recognize some wonderful people.
Time is truly the one thing we are all hurting for, John.
I have been doing the link work manually. So far, I’ve been able to eliminate the spam comments early, because I moderate them before they post, but some of the other points you raise give me pause. I’m going to have to look into this further. Thanks for the insights!
I thought I was doing pretty well with not posting spam comment, Doug, but some still slipped through.
Hi Ana,
Awesome list which I will be checking out more closely as I do have the Broken Link Checker plugin installed right now.
You always find the goodies. Thank you so much for sharing them with us!
Ilka
You are very welcome, Ilka!
So did I, Stacy, and now I am faced with rechecking all those backlinks with all means possible.
You are so welcome!
Ana, what a powerful post! Not only did you share some wonderful tools and advice you showed a ton of love to your blogging friends. I’m honored to be among them 🙂
To top that all off you went even deeper by giving us something to really think about. We have decisions to make not only about the comments and broken links of the past but we also need to look to the future and decide if we are going to make major changes to the way we moderate comments and post links. I’m one of those people who reads through the comments and I noticed right away that the quality of the comment on this post has gone up a notch!
This is one of the great ones Ana. Blog on my friend! Thank you.
Always honored by your attention, Ileane.
Yes, I love rewarding my commentators with links and personal attention, but it does require quite a bit of sorting through junk comments.
However, the best fix is always prevention, right?
Hi Ana,
Thank you so much for sharing this information, and for mentioning me. It’s an honor to be mentioned by you and on your blog.
I have thought about checking broken links, and I have thought about removing spam links etc.. but that’s one of those things that I keep thinking about, but never actually do. Now, I have one more thing on my to-do list thanks to you 🙂
Thanks again for being awesome.
I should change the tagline of my blog:
“Follow me, and Your To-Do List Will Never Run on Empty.”
You are very welcome, Jens, and thank YOU!
Ana,
First of all a big, “Thank you” for the shout out and link. 🙂
second, this is some great info. Like you (previously) I have simply been using the broken link checker addon. While it gets some of the links, it seems I might be missing quite a few.
My comment numbers are about half of yours… But 13,000 is still quite a lot of comments to sort through. You have given me some great places to start to trim some of the the fat.
Thanks once again for another awesome post.
You are so very welcome, Steve – if you need a bigger to-do list, I am your gal.
And thank you so much for being a part of my blog for so long!
Wow, did not realize that Broken Link Checker was so limited. I did know their Nuclear Option killed site speed.
I’m going to have to check this out.
Thanks Ana!
Neither did I, Ryan, and now paying dearly for it.
Thanks again for a very usefull post. As allways I can’t stop reading Your advices which come from experience. That works for me. Gave You a tweet and G+. All the best from Denmark!
You are very welcome, Jorgen; always a pleasure.
I know exactly what you are talking about, Mark – I actually deleted some of my posts for that reason.
What a great post full of valuable info Ana! I know that I would never have thought of this if you hadn’t brought it up.
And thanks so much for the mention! And that’s one of the things I love about you – you stop to think about the people who got you to where you are. 🙂
You are very welcome, Danielle – we all have a lot of work ahead of us, don’t we?
Awesome Ana, Thanks for the “link love.” I plan on blogging until I am about 80 years (I’m not giving up) old because it is so much fun and some work too of course. 🙂
I went through my comments four months ago and deleted the coupon code commenters and general comments that didn’t allow me to comment back on their blog. And also comments left from people who abandoned blogging for good.
I turned off “allow trackbacks” on all of my posts now because of those spam trackbacks like you mentioned in your previous post.
Blog maintenance is a lot of work but something that has to be done none the less. Take care and thanks again for adding me in your post. 🙂
You are very welcome, Justin, and once again, thank YOU.
Yes, blog maintenance is neglected by most bloggers – it’s like doing the dishes, who likes that, right?
However, it needs to be done, and the more often, the better.
This is just great Ana. I have just checked my links on Dr Link and it found about 20 links broken. Unfortunately it is limited to 1K links only but I am on my way to check the other tools, after I fix the first 20 🙂
As for the trackbacks, you are so right and I still don’t know hwy I had enabled until now. Most of them are just “false” links and they just suck me more time than anything else. These tools are really helpful and I do encourage everyone to follow your lead. It is important for all aspects and as far as I am concerned, I really do hate broken links, on my site and on others 🙂
A huge thank you for the mention Ana. I already engage in one form or another with most of the people above, but there are some that I have been neglecting for sure. Off to remedy that now.
Trackbacks be gone!
And you are so welcome, Francisco – I really do appreciate your friendship.
You said you used the broken link plugin check and it slowed your site down for hours, but what about the online checkers like drlinkcheck or brokenlinkcheck for example. Are we talking hours too? I am just wondering if it is something I should wait until an optimal time when my computer will be on for a while. I know it will depend on the site and how many pages and links they need to crawl. After it completes there is the tedious task of going through it all I am guessing too. Probably would be easy to keep up with if we ran these checks regularly, but we all know how that goes sometimes. We start out good, but things come up and we forget to keep up with them.
Good point, Ray.
When you use outside tools like DrLinkCheck or even more so, the desktop tools I mentioned, you run the scan in the off-time (I usually do it at night).
Broken Link Checker works in the background whenever your dashboard is open.
Keeping up with all the maintenance is certainly a pain in the rear.
I agree with you. I really feel very disappointed everytime I feel like I am interested in a particular link only to find out that this link is broken. Then from there, I need to make some search again.
It could certainly be frustrating.
Hello Ana,I was just scanning through the spam comments on my blog and noticed a lot of trackbacks and was wondering if these were actually useful. And then i reached here to read this. 🙂
As far as broken links are concerned, I usually dont get as many comments. But I will surely go through the existing ones again. Good Post.
There’s a blessing in fewer comments, Sanjay, even though might not always seem that way.
What an informative post Ana!
I can’t thank you enough for putting this up, as I have been getting so many broken links from some known and some unknown people and just about wondering why and what to do.
I guess I do need to check out all of the links you mentioned- especially DrLinkCheck.com and the others as well. However, I never knew that CommentLuv was also not able to really make out the Broken links in the real way. And I don’t really prefer approving the trackbacks as well, unless they are from known friends and bloggers.
Thanks so much for sharing this wonderful source of information with everyone 🙂
You are so very welcome, Harleena.
I wish there was a simpler way to deal with the problem of broken links; unfortunately, it all comes down to some elbow grease. lol
We replaced our comment section to facebook comment so we wont have to deal with the unnecessary issues anymore.
FB comment system is certainly great for bloggers, but not for the commentators.
Great Post Ana! This is the first post of yours that I have read and I am very pleased. There is information regarding links in commentluv which I had no idea. I’ve added you to my feeds!
Thanks for coming by, Troy, and welcome to TGC.
I use Broken Link Checker plugin for checking the broken links on my blog. Thanks for taking the time to put together this awesome tools list.
You are most welcome.
Congrats on your blog Ana. To have that many comments is a testament to you and your blogs success. Thanks for sharing tools and providing your analysis/experience with them. Bad neighborhood links and broken links can have an SEO impact for sure. It is awesome that you gave your loyal followers a shout out. Two the most underutilized words in our language are please and thank you. Thanks for sharing!
You are very welcome, Rick, and thanks for coming by.
Ana, you rock! I must have at least half a dozen of your blog posts on speed-dial. This makes another. I remember Xenu from waaay back. It is collecting dust in my archives. 🙂
The only other tool I ever used was Andy Black’s Profile Link Checker. It’s not really intended for use as you the other tools you’ve mentioned – and I have no idea how thorough it was, the one time I ran it.
Now, I can try DrLinkCheck. I wonder what surprises it has. Speaking of surprises…thanks for sharing us “old-timers” and giving out a bit of link love.
I can honestly say that I follow 90% of your advice. The other 10% is Twitter. LOL 🙂
Onward and upward to a spam-free, sparkly-clean linked blogosphere!
Cheers,
Mitch
Glad to hear Twitter is trailing behind me advice-wise, Mitch. lol
Time to dust off Xenu and put it to good use!
And you are very welcome; the least I can do.
This is really a great piece of information. I was glad that you talked about trackbacks and pingbacks. I wasn’t 100% sure about what to make of them but, especially for the trackbacks, I can clearly see that most of them are pure trash. The pingbacks can be real when someone links to your site on they post, for example.
I also used to accept not so good comments in the past, but as I am getting more and more traffic, now that I taking my blogging seriously 🙂 I tend to just spam or trash anything that doesn’t sound or look good. I think, from what you’re saying that I will thank myself later for it.
I wish I had that kind of wisdom from the start, Sylviane. lol
Better late than never?
Hi Ana,
First of all, I want to say that it’s an honor to be the friend of such a gracious and smart 🙂 person as yourself. You have taught me a great deal since I have been following your blog. I truly appreciate the mention you gave me today.
Secondly, when you get to be my age, you’ll delete a lot more than 7,000 comments. I always say, if you knew everything your brains would blow up.
I do use the broken link checker, but I didn’t really know what to do with it, other than get rid of some links to domains I don’t use anymore. Now I can use it to its greatest potential, thanks to your post. I will also check out some of the others you mention, although we’re not such a big site as you are.
Ana, I think the reason we like each other is because we’re both peasants deep down. Peasants, to me, seem to be the ones who work and I know we both share that trait.
Hope your move goes smoothly, and your husband likes his new job.
Lou
“Peasant bloggers: The Overworked and Underpaid United”
An idea for a new blog? lol
Thanks for the wishes, Lou. As of yet, everything is moving very slowly, but at least in the right direction.
Good stuff Anna. Lucky for me, I’d already been blogging when I started IJS so I knew about the spam comments. And Broken Link Checker does let me know when websites or links are no longer available. But I’d never thought about those comments left after I got around to deleting a bad comment but left any responses to them on the blog; heck. Lucky for me, that would have been a rare occurrence. Still, it’s important that folks know the reason why they need to check those broken links and you did a great job explaining it here.
Yes, Mitch, this is definitely one of those things we need to know sooner rather than later.
And thank you!
Can you shed some examples of comments that *smell like* spam? I used to know what such a phrase meant but I’m less sure these days. I used to think an email address that begin with john12345 was a sure sign of a spammer but I’m less sure these days. How do you determine it?
Here’s a good example, Ari – this comment was added to my Aweber review:
“I think the best for e-mail lists when you gather your own. You need a system where you let users register and they fill in the form with your specific needs. You may need to offer something in exchange like a good reason for membership. Also, when sending out mails you need to have targeted groups and the right message to best convert them.”
It’s seemingly relevant, but doesn’t really refer to anything specifically in the post.
The commentator’s name is “Paf”; the website link is a casino website, and the email address has nothing to do with either Paf or casinos.
What happens is someone comes up with a nice paragraph pertaining to a certain topic (like email marketing in this case), then outsources finding blog posts on this specific topic and posting the same comment over and over the blogosphere.
Pure link building and spamming.
Just tried out DrLinkCheck..I had 4 broken links out of 500.. Whew! Of course all 4 were to sites I had linked to in a post. I’m going to go fix those now. Thanks for sharing about that tool. That was the first time I had heard about it and it was super great to use!
I only wish my broken links were anyone close to even double digits, Ashley! lol
I hope that means you are doing a great job trashing the spam comments that come your way.
Well luckily I can say I’ve done great trashing spam comments b/c I don’t approve anything unless it looks legit but my site is so new that I rarely get that many comments, so I’m able to look at all of the ones that come in.
It’s only a matter of time, Ashley, and your blog might be bustling with horse lovers!
Oooh… I love the new comment section. The pictures are much bigger now. I haven’t got this particular concern because I don’t get have as many comments as you do. This is probably a good thing because I would’n’t have the time to sort though the old ones.
Just worth a mention… not all Blogger blogs are free. Some (like mine) have been paid for 🙂 Just thought I’d say.
Silly me! I mistook your shout outs for comments! Now I see the comments are the same. Never mind …
And you’ve made sure that no one can leave comments that are too short. I found this out while trying to leave this comment. Perhaps you could add this in your last section (takeaway).
Are you talking to yourself again, Anne? lol
I had no idea some blogger blogs are paid, Anne – learned something new today!
Ana, if you wish to remove the Blogger Navbar, you can do so in an instant. This is one of the easiest code edits.
Also, I think you meant purchased(.com) custom domain when you say paid(payed for) Blogger blog, yes ?
As far as I know, apart from a Blogger custom domain only opening an Adsense(Adwords) account would be the other area where payment would be required.
There is an instance whereby, on highly successful Blogger blogs(Traffic and PR) Google will allow for paid advertising(selling ad space).
The only other possibility of forking out mullah, as far as a Blogger blog is concerned, is for having a custom template designed(Or logo) or paid SEO services(SEO, not traffic exchanges).
Though, going to all that trouble on a site where you own the domain name, but not the site, would not seem to be a good choice.
I will leave a link to a quick CSS tutorial to remove the Blogger Navbar.
Should take you a minute or two, at best, if you decide to do so.
Ana, my apologies.
The message was meant for Anne from Writing site.
That will teach me to read someones name correctly before responding, next time.
Ana, Anne – as we say it in Russia, call me a pot, just don’t put me in the oven.
That makes sense what you said about purchasing a domain name vs somehow making Blogger self-hosted, Daniel.
And thanks for addressing Anne’s question!
Yes, Daniel. I’ve paid for my domain. I renew each year. I’ve got 3 of them. I’ve done a lot of customisation on these blogs by following instructions on other sites. Thanks for the link, but I love my navbar and don’t want to remove it. It helps me share content and find other blogs in my niche. Besides, I can go straight to my design and write a new post from it. I think it’s very useful.
Hey Ana,
What a pleasant surprise! Thank you SO much for the kind mention. You’re such a smart cookie, now I know why you needed the links to my best posts 😀
Many thanks for this valuable information as always. Now I have a lot of work to do, cleaning my comments.
Thanks for all you do, my friend! Keep rocking!
Mavis
Thank you, my friend – right back at you!
I knew broken links weren’t exactly a good thing, but had no idea of the negative effect they had on your site. Thank you so much for the automated tools. Perhaps I’ll see a little jump in PR or Alexa rank now.
You are so very welcome, Clara.
Hi Ana,
When we first got together for coffee at Cartel, I was actually surprised to learn that your blog has been in existence for only about 2 years. Why?
Because I became aware of you almost as soon as you deployed your blog AND as soon as your blog was up it looked mature, both design and content wise, plus it had a healthy community to boot.
You should write a post about rapid community development, cuz you managed to do exactly that 🙂
Anyways..link checking is boring, hard work…I’ve never done it tho I know I should. Maybe I put it on my to-do list for 2013 🙂
Apparently, you are not the only one I managed to fool, Dino. lol
Nice idea for a post!
Still planning on making it on the 22nd – hopefully…
Ana!
I was ready to leave a comment about the link checker and then I see what you did at the end! OMG! I am going to cry!! Really I am. Now I know what you were up to. LOL.
Thank you so much for everything you have done over the 18 months. I can say, you are one of the VERY FEW blogs I come back to almost everyday. I always know you have the best content. I know I shouldn’t but I share your stuff blindly sometimes before reading it. I trust you that much.
Words can’t explain how happy you made me.
Ok, so now my comment.
First, I am probably one of those bloggers that created the broken links for you. Sorry. Early on I changed the format of my URL’s (probably because of something you wrote, ha ha) and those were left behind in comments.
Again, you do a thorough job in analyzing every tool and aspect of that tool for us. I only use Broken Link Checker but I didn’t realize it doesn’t check Comluv links. Maybe Andy should get busy on a plugin that works with Comluv. Hmmm?
I’m with you, I mostly stopped allowing trackbacks. The only ones I allow are from bloggers I trust. I mostly did it because it clutters my post but now I have an even more practical reason not to.
Happy Valentine’s Day! Luv Ya!
~Allie
Ohhh, Allie – so sweet you are!
I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you; this post doesn’t do it justice!
I did actually ask Andy about the broken CL links; he said (…technacaleze blah-blah-blah…) won’t work. lol
I changed the permalink structure myself in the past, so I forgive you for following my advice. 🙂
LOL, technacaleze. My husband does that to me, he’s an IT guy. I just tell him to fix it and never mind why or how.
I like what Dino said, you are a blogging and SEO dynamo. 🙂
Hi Ana,
Huge work you’ve done here! I use also broken link checker, but I never re-checked the effectiveness of this plugin.
I’m seeing that there are a lot of extra-broken links to check…CLuv, replies, etc more after my move to WP, I’m pretty sure that there will be a ton more to explore and it’s eating my memory – didn’t know that!
Will check the other alternatives, for sure 🙂
Also a BIG THANK YOU for the mention!! Still finding good bloggers that need to visit often 🙂
Cheers,
Gera
I didn’t realize you weren’t on WP, Gera…
And you are so very welcome!
Ana, thank you for the shout out, it’s much appreciated! And thank you for your thoroughly researched post… again.
That’s why I read your blog, it’s a combination of your personality plus real information that I don’t find in that kind of depth other places.
I’m off to look at the link checker options to see which one is the best solution for my blog.
Thanks,
Peggy
You are so very welcome, Peggy.
I can’t believe how long this post turned out to be…
Cleaning up broken link is important, deleting the comments themselves may not be necessary if you just want to unlink the broken links. As comments themselves are factored with SEO/SERP only remove comments where the comment itself could provide no value to the keyword/terms that you are hoping to capitalize on. Or you could risk lowering your post standing in the SERP by removing comments that may have made it show up more prominently under certain search terms.
Spam comments are also a major concern and drain on good PR in posts, CommentLuv Premium has gotten much better at weeding out spam bots and spam comments, but there is always manual comment spam to weed through and remove. Nobody should have a blog configured to auto-approve all comments, unless left by a previously approved commenter in most cases.
I hear you about deleting comments vs just unlinking them, Justin.
However, consider this:
1. It actually takes longer to unlink a CL link, plus a name field link, and even more so, any links within the body of the comment than to simply delete them.
2. For the most part, comments actually hinder our rankings because they “dilute” the page content.
3. As of right now, AFTER I deleted some 7K comments, my comment file on the server is close to 20MB. Letting the “dead” comments sit on my blog does more harm than good.
Thoughts?
I use an external commenting system so it is way less overhead to load the comments from a database table when called via external script and cloud servers.
Still database smaller is always a good thing, though with caching plugins even a 1000 comment article should stay cached and not cause too much overhead as far as load times are concerned.
“Dilute page content” is of interest, I haven’t considered that fact from a Google “index/scan” perspective, from a reader perspective few will read the comments unless they didn’t find what they were looking for specifically in the article or deliberately want other viewpoints, see responses from readers.
Oh, yes, you are using LiveFyre now…
One of my/your readers wanted me to have a talk with you and turn you back to the regular system plus CommentLuv. lol
Did you read my comparison of Livefyre to CommentLuv and why someone would choose one or the other http://www.dragonblogger.com/livefyre-action-commentluv/ both have their strengths for different reasons. If WordPress were to revamp their commenting system, then Livefyre may be able to meet what I am looking for.
As it stands now there are things Livefyre can do that Commentluv cannot due to the limitations of the WordPress commenting systems. I love CommentLuv, I still promote it and even say that for most bloggers it is the ideal commenting system, but the bridge between Social Media and blog that I am looking for requires me to use Livefyre at this time as well as with Livefyre I can stay on a post and watch and respond to comments coming in real time without refreshing page, it works like a living dialog box for my bigger posts.
Note, I didn’t really see the clear benefit until I started getting a few posts reaching 200+ comments which is where I really started seeing Livefyre shine.
I meant to say if WordPress were to revamp, then maybe CommentLuv would be able to achieve what I was looking for.
Just read the post, Justin – you make some good points.
These are some great tips Ana. Like you I have a lot of comments and have let it go a long while. I was kinda wondering about whether those “missing” blogs were creating an issue and you’ve confirmed they are. One more thing added to the to-do list!
Kim
It never ends, does it, Kim? lol
I tried to outsource the task, but didn’t go very well. I think it’s a bit too complicated to develop an eye for spammers and link builders.
Whau Ana
Thank you so much for mentioning me in this post. Now I know why you needed to have link for my best ever posts 😉 This is just awesome….!!
Regarding the link issue I guess I better have to find another Broken Link Checker to check my blog. I have never really doubt that Broken Link Checker was not up for the task. Thank you very much for pointing that one out.
In return for mention me in this post with those other great bloggers I will help you promote this post all I can everywhere I can 🙂
In return for mention me in this post with those other great blogger I will help you promote this post all I can 🙂
And now we know better, Thomas!
Thanks for sticking with me for all this time!
Great post Ana and thank you so much for not only this awesome information but for the mention. It’s greatly appreciated. I’m flattered to be among some other faithfuls.
I’m kind of scared to even attempt to clean my links up. I know I have a lot from the beginning of my blog so I’ll have to take the time on a weekend and just really go through and clean them all up.
I know that within the first year and a half my blog has been live, I’m sure that a lot of those links will more than likely be broken. Mainly because a lot of those people have abandoned their blogs as well.
I also probably still have a good bit of spam although I did take some time and clean those up last year. I admit, I didn’t know any better back then. Oh, we do live and learn don’t we!
Thank you so much for this thorough explanation and for all the research you took the time to do. I know I’m not going to be the only one who appreciates all your hard work so thanks again.
Happy Valentine’s Day Ana and appreciate the mention again! Have a fabulous day!
~Adrienne
You are so very welcome, Adrienne; it’s the least I can do for all the support you’ve given me.
I know what you mean, it’s a lot of work. But I do believe it needs to be done.
Thank you for this very valuable information, Ana. I have been using the BrokenLink Checker plugin but knew it wasn’t as thorough as it needed to be. That plugin has never found any broken links on my site, but every so often I see from my stats that there is a broken link somewhere. I hadn’t thought about bloggers who comment with CommentLuv and then abandon their blogs.
I also like your reasons not to approve trackbacks. I have been rejecting them from sites I didn’t know but you give valid reasons why I should reject them from all sites.
Thank you for the shoutout and for being such a valuable resource here at Traffic Generation Cafe!
Broken Link Checker seems to be the standard to do the job, Carolyn; so I never questioned its effectiveness in the past.
And now I know better!
Thank you for sticking with me!
Hey Ana,
Thanks for mentioning me and linking to some of my favorite posts, much appreciated.
I am running into spam problems on my blog now also. I get so many comments, where you can tell that these people didn’t even read the post. They get sent into spam very quickly. That’s one of the issues with having a DoFollow blog.
I am going to have to read this one again Ana, so much value. Thanks for writing this post. Looks like I have some work to do on my blog now, if I can find the time 🙂
Thanks again for mentioning me!
You are so very welcome, Ian!
Time is always the issue, isn’t it?