Not too long ago I was dead link building with the Mozilla Firefox LinkChecker Add-on. I started recommending it in a few posts, saying how great of an add-on it was, when in reality I had no idea there were other broken backlink checkers out there. But one day Ross Hudgens was kind enough to tweet about one of the greatest link building browser extensions known to man – Check My Links, a chrome extension. From that point on, I was fully converted to the Chrome toolbar, but arguing Firefox and Chrome is a topic for another time. In a nutshell, Check My Links will become your best friend for building some of the top links on the web for multiple reasons.
Here's a little history of what dead link building was before this extension. All I knew in this area was the LinkChecker Firefox add-on, but it posed a few problems.
- Because it was so slow, you had to make sure you were pursuing high value pages that were worth your time. Checking a low PR page with a low domain authority was never an option.
- You couldn't check multiple pages at the same time, so you usually had to do something in the mean time when one page was getting checked. While this was OK, I lost focus frequently and got annoyed that I couldn't find the links that were broken ASAP.
- I got stuck on links – the add-on wasn't smart enough to skip links with long load times and check other links first, rather it went down the page in order link by link, with some links taking up to 30 minutes to check (and in some cases longer!). This was the exact opposite of efficiency, but at the time I was unaware of any other options.
Now, time to brag about my new great find (or Ross' that is). Pretty much, it's the greatest link building browser extension I've ever used. First of all, it's extremely fast. Like almost too fast. It usually checks half the page in under 10 seconds. It also finds the links that are quickest to check, saving the links with long load times for last (I still don't know how they do this). Best of all, I can check multiple pages at once, which saves some serious time because I usually find 50 pages at a time to check. As a bonus, it even tells you what kind of page error the broken link got (i.e. 404, 500, etc.). If you'd like to install this extension, first install the Chrome browser here, then click on this link to go to the extension install page. Once it's installed, all you have to do is click the icon in the top right of your browser and watch it work its magic.
Some of you are asking this question: How do I build links by finding broken ones? My answer: welcome to the world of high quality link building with minimal effort. There are a few ways you can build links doing this, so I'll break down each of my favorites.
1. Direct Find and Replace
My first favorite is finding broken links on blogrolls and links pages and asking to replace one with a link to your site. The way to find these pages is by finding a few top industry blogs. Bring up tabs of all the links on their blogroll and links pages, and then check out each site individually and look for pages with a high amount of external links (for blogs, this is on every page if it's their blogroll. For other sites, look for a "links" or "resources" page). After doing this you should have at least 25 pages (use other blogrolls to find other related blogs to check if you want more). The next part is my favorite – put your newly added Chrome extension to work. Once you've checked all the links, find the pages that have at least one broken link. This is your "in" with the webmaster. Shoot them an email telling them you've found a few broken links and then ask he/she to replace one of them with a link to your website. Here's a sample email of what I generally say:
Hi *insert name here if you can find one*,
I was browsing your website when I stumbled across a few bad links I thought you should check out. I know you don't have much time on your hands, so I went ahead and listed the links here:
Broken Link #1
Broken Link #2
Broken Link #3
I hope this helps! I for one hate broken links, and as a webmaster myself, I know links break all the time. Also – do you think you could replace one of the bad links with a link to my site? It's a great resource about *niche*, which is completely relevant and your readers would enjoy. Here's the URL: https://www.mysite.com
Thanks for your time!
Your name here
Sometimes I like to only notify them of the broken links, then wait for a response and then pursue a link, but lately that hasn't been working for me. I've found it's best to catch them in the best mood, which is when you're letting them know about a problem on their site. Now, don't follow the above email word for word – it's best to get as personal as possible. Mention their name at the top and at the closing (if you can find a name) or even say something like how much you enjoyed one of their blog posts. The more personal, the more they know you're a real person. One thing that always seems to work is to comment on a few of their posts a week or two before you contact them, so hopefully by that time they know who you are and know you actually read their blog.
2. Content Replacement
Wow, that first one was long, but only because that's what I use Check My Links for 90% of the time. My second favorite is taking the dead link building a step forward by looking at the pages that are broken. By using the wayback machine, I'm able to find what exactly was on that page that they were linking to (and probably others were linking to as well). After seeing what they're linking to, I recreate this piece of content on my own site. Not only will webmasters be more willing to replace the bad link with a link to the same content (but in your own words), you're also able to use Open Site Explorer or Yahoo Site Explorer to find others linking to this page as well. This allows you to find other people who have the same broken links on their site, thus giving you another chance to email them and ask for a link replacement. You can also use the two site explorers mentioned above on broken links in regular blogrolls, because again, chances are someone else is linking to that page too.
3. Broken Blogger Blogs
The last is something I recently tried and is a little grey hat depending on how you look at it. Before you read – I sincerely want your feedback on this, so leave it in the comment section below J. Here's what I do – I find broken links on blogrolls and check for which ones point to subdomains on blogspot.com. I look to see if I can register the blog myself (only roughly 10% allow it), then I throw up a static page with a big link to my blog using the keyword I want to rank for. I then state below to click on the above link to find this blog at the new location. This gives you your own anchor text and a link with a higher amount of link juice depending on how many outbound links are pointing to that page. Yeah, it's a little sketchy, and I don't know if I should continue doing this, but again let me know in the comments below.
I'm a real link builder with real results, and I'm not telling you a lie when I say this is genuinely my top strategy in obtaining high quality links. I'm not hiding anything and I'm not asking you to pay for information on strategies like this, so all I ask is if you leave a comment below. Thanks for reading!
Author Bio:
If you'd like to find out more high quality link building techniques, check out Jon Cooper's Link Building Blog. Point Blank SEO is a fairly new SEO blog dedicated to providing real link building strategies that really work. Check out the blog and see the latest things he's trying out, such as his new niche site challenge.
Sorry mate but I find you have way more sucess if you use a email from the TLD you are trying to build links on, for example people will take much more notice of an email such as [email protected] over [email protected]
Agreed. Gmail has become a spammer haven. When I get business requests, a real TLD will always provide more credibility for me, I would assume the same when I am soliciting links.
Thanks for the tip - I've always been cautious using the website's email because then the webmasters know that you're reccomending your own website. I like to try and start the conversation without the webmaster knowing which website I'm associated with, but I'll definitely try this in the future. Thanks James!!
No problem, happy to help out.
Even try a bit of a test too see what has more of a response rate.
Regards,
James Norquay
On the email, do you think an email from credible source would spark your attention though? What if it were attached to a person like the new Facebook mail is trying to do, would it then be just as credible?
A good point, it's easy to overfocus on the content of the email, without even considering the impact of the TLD. And with the inexpensive price of domains it's not too hard to get creative to boost your credibility.
Those are some brilliant ideas. I like your content replacement strategy :) Hours and hours of fun there!
That's the best part - with this strategy you'll never hit that infamous link wall!
I don't really understand what's that great about the extension. It's quite slow and there is no way to export the results e.g. 404s, 301s, 302s so not that useful.
There is an awesome extension for Firefox called Simple Links which has been around for years but not many SEOs are aware of it. It was lacking a Firefox 7 update until recently where one came out and is availble at https://onlinemarknadsforing.com/simple-links-counter-1-7-for-firefox-7/
Simple links does quite a few things like displaying the number of all outgoing links on a page (internal + external), crawl all links on a page and display on the screen the response header e.g. 200, 404, 301, 302 etc. More importantly it allows to export all external links to a txt file.
Another handy plugin similar to 'Checm MY Links' but for Firefox is the LinkChecker which highlights links on page in different colours.
You're honestly the first person I've heard say it's been slow (not trying to be mean, just honest!). Personally I haven't checked out Simple Links just because I haven't used Firefox recently. I used to use LinkChecker 24/7, and I thought it was great, but as I said in the post, once I heard about Check My Links there was no competition.
Thanks Modi! Glad to hear your feedback :)
Jon,
I bet that after you try Simple Links you will stop using Check My Links, unless you don't like Firefox.
It's great that there is a broken links checker for Chrome but unfortunately it's very limited.
Give simple links a go and let me know. Firefox 7 is pretty fast by the way...
Hi, I built 'Check My Links'. If it's slow, it'll be due to the volume of links it's having to check and the responses from each site. A lot of these limitations are due to limitations in the Chrome extensions api and because I wanted the extension to be dead-simple. I might get round to adding an exportable log of some kind, but all the 4xx & 5xx errors are written to the javascript console in Chrome should you need them. Is it that useful to have a log of all the 200 responses? I dunno. Anyways, thanks for the feedback!
Just to let you know, I can inform you that I have updated the Simple Links Counter plugin (and the NoDoFollow plugin) for Firefox 8 today. The plugins are verified to work in Firefox 8.
You'll find these plugins at the Onlinemarknadsföring site , specifically:
Simple Links Counter for Firefox 8 - https://onlinemarknadsforing.com/go/simple_links_1_8/
NoDoFollow for Firefox 8 - https://onlinemarknadsforing.com/go/nodofollow_1_8/
All creds should go to the original developrs. I have just committed myself to keep them updated and verified for future versions of Firefox for as long as I find the time to do it.
Please enjoy! :)
Thank you for these tips, Chrome is looking better and better for SEO tasks!
I love actionable posts, so this was right up my street. There are various WordPress plugins that check for and in some cases resolve bad links, but there's still definitely a market for getting in touch with bloggers.
If anyone would like to give me feedback on the thumbs down, it would be appreciated. Not sure what I said wrong in my comment above...
I've had this plugin installed for a while and have been using it successfully, but it was really useful to hear another SEO giving their thoughts and strategies with it.
Thank you JR
Awesome. I've been looking for a tool to replace the ole Firefox link checker addon.
I was so excited to try it out I immediately installed Check My Links on all my Chrome installations and did a quick search for some link opportunities. Second site I visited yielded a broken link and a possible door.
Thanks Jon!
Love it - so obvious when you think about it! Well done Jon!
great tools, even better use of them!
I am just never on the ball with this kind of thing, i'd be lost without posts such as this.
I am real link builder and I love this blog post. I have installed and used that tool for my website. I am telling you honestly, It takes too much time ~1 minute to check all links.
I have one confusion with link result. It shows 4 broken links. Actually, it's not broken link but, I have set 301 redirection from old URLs to new URLs. I think, it's not a broken link. Can you give me more idea about this data?
You can know more by following image.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/vistastores/6256566858/in/photostream/
Your suggestions are totally awesome and create more attention for external webmaster. Because, we are giving alerts to them for broken links. I am thinking one more option with same manner. If we will create attractive signature with our social media links before sending them email so it will create more attention. [If both websites are with same niche.] External webmaster can attract to be connected with our social media profile and may give us benefit in near future. What you think about it?
Guys - you need to be wary of this plugin as it could potentially lead to people getting banned on Google Adsense. I ran it just a few hours ago on 3 of my websites each have Adsense and for each profile my earnings went through the roof (like a couple of hundred $$$ in an hour). One site which gets very little traffic CTR went up to 600% which is undoubtably going to set off Google flags on my account.
I'd appreciate it if anyone else can check this and verify (preferably do so on a page with one ad unit to reduce clicks) - if so you should remove this post. Am just praying my adsense account will be ok...
Wow, I had never heard this before. Thank you Matt, this is alarming and should be taken note of. I'll run a test at the expense of my own adsense account. I'm very sorry!!
Also, I don't think removing the post altogether is necessary, just because if people are aware not to use the plugin if they see adsense.
Hi, I built 'Check My Links'. Never really considered this, to be honest... not sure how you'd make any link checker avoid "clicking" on Google Adsense adverts. Something to think about, I guess. Hmm.. tricky.
I've been thinking about this and I don't see how this can be prevented unless Adsense links have an attribute which is unique to adsense (so they can be ignored). If not, this will be the same problem for all link checkers which render the page before running the check. I'll have look into this, but if the adsense links arent uniquely defineable, I'm afraid there's nothing I can do to help.
This should be easy shouldn't it? Just set it to automatically ignore any links starting with: https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/
As far as I'm aware, all Adsense links begin with this.
Things always look different in the morning! With some adsense assistance from jrcooper (I'd never used it before), I've now updated version 2.2 of the extension to skip Google Adsense links. Hope that helps.
Actually, I don't think it's as simple as I suggested! If you view the source code of a page with Adsense ads, you don't actually see any Adsense links. All you see is the javascript code that displays the ads. Your new version still checks the links in these javascript blocks. Would setting it to ignore javascript be a better option? Or at least setting it to ignore Google Adsense javascript. There appear to be elements common to all Adsense blocks.
If the links start with https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net it shouldn't check them. I wouldn't worry about what's in the source code and what isn't... the links are collected by analysing the document object model (after the page is loaded), so links loaded via javascript are still included in the checking process. Ignoring javascript based links would only make the tool less useful, I'm afraid... it might not be ideal for those running Adsense (although I think by ignoring the adsense domain, that should be enough), but for everyone else, it's a pretty critical piece of functionality. If you could clarify: Are you definitely running version 2.2? Are the adsense links being served from https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net? Are they perhaps https adsense links?
Great tool. I downloaded it today & tried it. It appears to be checking my Adsense ads...they all turn green.
Here's one of the Adsense links: https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/aclk?sa=L&ai=B5Mr..."
and here's the first line from the console: 22 Unable to post message to https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net. Recipient has origin https://classicschools.com.
Nice find! I really appreciate the speed. It isn't 100% accurate but close enough to sift through a lot of pages quickly.
I turned our QA folks onto Link Checker, looks like this is even a better option
My only problems with Link Checker is that it's not as fast & you can only check one page at a time. For link builders like me, I usually find 20 pages at a time I want to check, and with Link Checker it usually takes at least 10-15 minutes.
Thanks for the feedback :)
Hi, I'm the developer for 'Check My Links'. Do you have any live examples where it doesn't work properly, so that I can fix it? Thanks! https://twitter.com/happenchance
Is next mozrank update today? (sorry for the oftopic)
The Linkscape update schedule is at https://seomoz.zendesk.com/entries/345964-linkscape-update-schedule, and there is a Linkscape update scheduled for tomorrow.
Hey,
Good post...just to be clear about the tool...it doesn't actually list the broken links, it only tells you how many are on the page and you have to look for the broken links (because they will have a red bar around them), correct?
Thanks!
Yep! Once the page is checked, just scroll down to find which ones are highlighted red. Granted not all of them are actually broken (some redirects register as a broken link, so check each one to make sure), but for the most part its the best dead link building tool you'll find.
You'll find a complete list of the errors found in the Link Check, by viewing the Chrome Javascript console after you've checked the page (Wrench > Tools > Javascript Console or Ctrl+Shift+J). The results will look like this: Response 404: Url of broken linkResponse 403: Url of forbidden link Check My Links will highlight any 4xx or 5xx HTTP response code as an error.
Jon,
Have you thought about doing a 301 from Blogger to the site you're building links for? That would give you all the link juice instead of just one link with Anchor Text.
If it's an abandoned site... I think it's fair game.
I was thinking about that, but I couldn't find much help on the web for doing it.
Meany thanks! Very practical information!
Glad I could help!
Awesome tips. You just brought a whole lot of fun to linkbuilding.
Agreed! Links & happiness are directly correlated :)
I hate broken links. I like your email sample respectful,simple and direct. I think me going use that. :) LOL! Thanks for sharing your link-fix. Thumbs up!
Simple is the most important part!
Thanks Wesley :)
Holy Mackerel that's a great extension!! The first method is awesome too! Though I'd be a little concerned with that last idea. Kinda spammy. Great Post.
Hey! Thanks so much for blogging about my extension... I was wondering why the user count for installs doubled almost overnight! So, for those wondering about where to find more information on the broken links Check My Links finds, let me introduce you to the coolest part about Google Chrome: Under the 'wrench' icon on the right hand side of the Chrome tool bar, there's a menu option called 'Tools' and in there you'll find 'Developer Tools' and 'Javascript Console'. Basically, Check My Links writes the full URLs and Response Codes into the Javascript Console (which is like a big log file), so you can view all the broken links in a nice big list. It'll look like this: Response 404: https://www.yourbrokenlink.co.uk/thispageisbroken.html If anyone has any suggestions about improving the extension, or whatever, I can be contacted via Twitter or my blog: https://twitter.com/happenchance https://happenchance.co.uk Thanks again for the article and all the new users! Happy link testing! Paul.
Do you think you could address a few of the problems that are stated in the comments above? I'd really appreciate it :)
Hi. Yeah, I've replied to a number of the comments above. Hopefully I should be able to get to the bottom of any major issues via some feedback. Again, people can contact me through this comment or via Twitter: @happenchance
i've just checked this chrome plugin and i can confirm that things are going very fast :) it scans the page quickly and give you results in few seconds. thank you for have sharing this
Great post Jon. I've been following Point Blank SEO for some time now and the content has been consistently superb.
Kapil :D glad to see you came across my guest post gem!
Thanks for the tip off Jon. I'll be installing the extension in the next few minutes. Just a quick question for you though (and anyone else looking at this) - aren't site-wide blogroll links considered a bad thing in today's SEO world? My point is, does Google pay any attention to blogroll links? I know i can look to see if the site has been penalised etc but will the blogroll links pass any quality juice? I've been advised against obtaining crappy links from Blogroll's and resource/link pages. I did watch the Will Reynolds video at the Distilled conference and he mentioned that "links from networks are working" and he also compiled a case study on a client where they built some "really strong authoritative" links and they actually decreased in rankings. Basically one crowd are saying one thing and another are saying something completely different. Judgement would say a diversified mix of links (with varying anchor text and to various internal pages of your site) should do the trick...
I've been wondering about that too - shouldn't you stay away from sitewide blogroll links?
Awesome, I'm glad you asked. I've recently been talking about it on Quora, twitter, and a few other sites with a group of SEO superstars (Ross Hudgens & Debra Mastaler to name a few). Here's what they said:
Ross said that you should try and avoid them, and should only be used for branding purposes (i.e. don't put keyword-rich anchor text) but rather the name of your website.
A few others said that they're still a postive sign for Google, but can easily be used for spamming. Therefore, try and make sure you're not using exact match anchor text, and ALWAYS STAY AWAY FROM SITEWIDE FOOTER LINKS! If you're not Wordpress or Joomla, Google doesn't like to see sitewide footer links (huge sign of spam).
Thanks for the feedback Jon
Sometimes its good to keep quiet about certain link / domain finding tactics - the stream is already saturated enough and you've handed it on a plate
Ha, out of curiosity, I ran the addon on this article page and it returned with 100% success on all links. Cheers SEO Moz!
One interesting note is that the page has 397 links due to all of the comments. SEO Moz recommends about 100 links per page, I found it interesting that they don't believe in the 100 rule. Perhaps it's because they would rather have all of the UGC on the page, despite the large link count.
What are your thoughts?
Here's a post that Dr. Pete did earlier this year that explains more information about the guideline that may help. https://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-many-links-is-too-many
SEOmoz has a DA of 88, and this article has 294 tweets so far. The 100 link "rule" is a guideline. The more authority a page has (DA/PA) the more links it can support.
Anyone else having problems getting data from the extension? I've tried it on different pages with different settings and it doesn't show anything except the total number of links. Wondering if it's just me.
Hmm, I've never had that problem. Maybe try a reinstallation, that's my only guess.
I am having the same issue, I really need to export this data or do more with it. It says I have 2 broken links on one page but I can't find it. Is an export tool included in this extension?
Details on how to do this: https://www.seomoz.org/blog/check-my-links-chrome-extension-a-link-builders-dream#jtc157069
Yeah some decent tips, finding broken links on websites, people linking to 404 pages on your site and many other ideas out their can have a good impact on your SEO. Only problem is when you need to contact people on some blogging platforms which are hosted on the subdomain the contact details cab be a bit trickey to acquire at times you have to dig deeper.
Yeah, I've had that problem a few times. Blogger seems to be the worst when it comes to this. I've come across at least 5 blogs on a blogspot subdomain I wanted to contact but couldn't find contact info.
Well when that is the case where the email/who is is impossible.
Try and locate a Twitter page, Facebook or even a user name on a forum for the specific user, we have had luck in the past doing that method to contact people, but yes some times people will make it impossible to be contacted.
Yeah, Blogger is the worst when it comes to finding contact info. When all else fails, I leave a comment on their latest post asking if they could get in touch with me. Its worked more times that I would have thought. In my comment I am apologetic about contacting them through the comments section of a post... but I tell them I've searched everywhere and couldn't find a good way to get ahold of them.
Thank you so much for these strategies! I can't wait to start trying these out.
Jon thaks for sharing the extension and some of your link building tactics. Looking forward to experimenting with this.
Did not know this plugin existed but wow, what a no-brainer. Thanks for this blog!
I wonder if you guys ever come across this problem. Often when I contact webmasters letting them know they have a broken link and asking for a link back to my site, they often reply "Yeah, sure. Let's do a link exchange." I'm not really after a link exchange, rather a one-way link to my site.
Any ideas to aoid this situation?
Thanks in advance.
I've had this problem a couple times. The first time I said something along the lines of "I don't do link exchanges, I was just looking to get my link replaced with one of the bad ones". The second time I negotiated to add a link on one of the blogspot blogs I acquired in exchange for a link on their blog, thus both giving up high quality one way links. I hope that helps!
@Confetti Wedding - You've just proved my theory that this type of LB in a complete waste of time and effort. Offer them some money or a free product etc.
This is a good chance to point fingers and say "My manager/owner/website guy won't let us do link exchanges, but we'd be happy to _________________." Then offer some sort of value to them like irldonalb mentioned, whether it's sample product, or a link or mention on one of your 3rd party sites (maybe a tweet or facebook share of some of their content).
Or, if it's a valuable enough link from a good domain or page, find some way to give them a link from a blog post or resources page of your site. I wouldn't hand these out willy-nilly, though.
I'm impressed - you managed to make link building sound like something fun instead of an enormously frustrating pain in the behind. I'll definitely give this a try.
Broken Blogger blogs strategy - I can see this being good for users (and a paler shade of hat) if you post a relevant article which happens to link to your site, but kind of crappy if it's pretty much just a big link.
Yeah, when I wrote this I was too dumb to realize that the best way to make use of these pages is to not throw up a spammy link, but rather put some quality text on the page and get a link mid-paragraph.
Nice post Jon Cooper... would like you to keep writing more of such stuff!
Some great link building ideas here, nice one Jon
Really helpful post. Can't wait to try this. If anyone knows any useful SEO apps for iPad, btw, please let me know.
Thanks Amanda! I'll be on the look out :)
Have you ever felt using this extention that you hit a link wall? If so, what do you recommend for people like me (newb) that feel like they have hit it that wall.
IF you feel like you've hit that wall, go ahead and follow these steps:
Hope this helps! I'm publishing a post over at my blog tomorrow about dead content recreation best practices, so if you'd like, head on over there tomorrow if you get the chance. Thanks JSRampton!!
Oh man....this is going to be fun.
By the way...this page has no broken links. :)
I'm curious, what is your success rate in building links like this?
If you work on a huge brand who has had an online presence for say 15 years and they have had people people in marketing make crazy micro sites, then yes these methods can be sucessful over and over.
For a small new website then yes it is not going to be that easy.
In all honesty as long as I get a response (which is 20-30% of the time unfortunately), I usually get the link 90% of the time. Here's a few tips to make sure you get responses:
Anybody got any other tips?
This is good stuff. I'm experimenting right now with some different types of emails. Fortunately it's not hard for me to comment as a cute girl. :)
Too funny...I've already got one response. It said, "Thank you for pointing it out!" and that was it. So, in that case, would you respond and generate conversation and then ask for a link back? Any way I try asking for a link I feel kind of "used-car-salesman-ish".
My other thought is to connect with this guy on Twitter and then see if I can get a link later on.
The more you build up the relationship, the higher chance you'll get that link. Your idea for Twitter is spot on!
Read the book Influence by Cialdini...you'll find some great tips for getting people to do things that you want them to. As far as how you can apply some of his information to getting more webmasters to add a link, I would start by using your email template and then "asking for a favor" ( adding your link, etc). Using the term "favor" in your email after you have provided something useful to someone else will move the needle greatly toward getting your link (favor). Thanks for the exception ideas in your post.
I would say, 1) be really friendly and 2) check for spelling mistakes. People tend to be wary of emails that look like a cut & paste job, and will be on the look out for errors to assess if it's a genuine request or just a spam email. As well as using their name, refer directly to some content they created, or include something they mentioned in a recent blog post, e.g. if they mention they were ill, asking if they're feeling better, if they said they were going to a gig, ask if they enjoyed it.
Has anyone had success using ToutApp for this? I've been playing around with it and seems effective so far. The idea about becoming a "cute girl" is a little grey hat IMO... LOL. But hey, whatever works!
Awesome in-depth analysis on going about link building with broken links! I will definetly begin trying them out, I also saved your blog to my favorites, you earned it! :)
Yes but sometimes the website is abbandoned... than thats no response at all...
You're always going to have this problem, which is why it's best to look for signs so you don't waste your time. For example, if it's a blog, if they haven't posted in 2 years then I don't bother.
Thanks, nice tips and very useful Chrome extension!
Hi that plugin sounds useful i started downloading it hope it works thanks for sharing this information
Hope you find it as helpful as I do!
Wow! Some really useful and effective content replacement and broken bloggers blog strategies. Love the post.
Second post I read on this subject. I need to research the possibility. Thanks for making it easy with the Chrome Extension tool. Great post!
I've been following Point Blank SEO for some time now and the content has been consistently superb. Great post Jon.
Hi Jon,
Thanks for the tips. Regarding the extyension I tried the link but it was broken. By doing a search in Chrome Web Store, I could not find the extension anymore. Any idea what happened?
Looks like I'm seeing it removed as well. Can anyone suggest a similar extension that works with Chrome?
Hi all, Google have removed the extension from the Web Store (it's currently 'under review')... I'm still in the process of finding out why that is, but in the meantime it can be downloaded from here: https://code.ocodia.com/extensions/cml/cml.crx Also, the source code is available on Github: https://github.com/ocodia/Check-My-Links Sorry about the hassles, but it's totally out of my control. I will be maintaining and upadting the externally hosted version of the extension in parallel with the Web Store version (when it eventually gets back online), so you don't have to worry which one you install... they'll both be the same. Issues with the extension should be reported here: https://github.com/ocodia/Check-My-Links/issues Further documentation is available here: https://github.com/ocodia/Check-My-Links/wiki Also.. you can follow me on twitter if you wish: https://twitter.com/ocodia (previously @happenchance) Thanks and spread the word.
That's weird they took it down and are holding in under review. Thanks for the alternative download link!
Thanks! Glad to see it is still available. I've been looking for such a tool. Love this - simple, clean, AND effective.
2 things:
I am not saying that Social Media is not relevant to certain types of business. I see the necessity for companies like Dance Clubs or Restaurants or other retailers that will use it to offer specials, and extend their reach to others, but I fail to see the value to most Blue Collar businesses.
If Social Media is not relevant to everyone, then it should not be a factor for Organic Rankings. Curious if anyone else agrees with me?
Thanks for this post. I will give it a try, but I still find link building to be the most boring of all SEO tasks.
Thank you so much for these strategies! I can't wait to start trying these out.
Thanks for some great tips. Will definately being trying these out
I'm new to SEO but I get the feeling that comments help blog posts rank as well. Is this true? Thanks!
Thanks so much for this post, something I will definitely be experimenting with!
Alice
I still prefer FireFox and it's plugins.
There's nothing wrong with Firefox, but just thought this extension deserved a share!
I always love to see real time Link Building strategies and here I got the step by step information about dead Link building, the chorme extension i.e. "check my links" is absolutely FAB!! It is so instant , that you just get complete overview within fraction of seconds that's cool.
But please reply me for my question!
My question is: I didn't understand your point i.e. 3. Broken Blogger Blogs strategy,I didnt understand reagarding thrwoing the static page with big link to your site, so i just wanted to know, would you feed some content in that static page or just a big link would be your Idea in that? Please REply!
OK, I'll try and be more clear:
I've come across a few blogspot subdomain blogs that have a huge amount of links built to them (sometimes up to 11-13k), but the blog owner abandoned the blog, leaving me with the ability to register the blog myself. Once I register it, I put up a page saying that we've moved to a new URL, and then use the right anchor text to link to my website, passing a huge amount of link juice back to my site.
I hope that clears things up a bit.
yeah now it is much cleared .. thanks for the reply... please keep on posting the quality posts like this , more in future.. would be waiting for your posts with much curiosity!! Thanks!!
I like it! Great addon and a great way to contact webmasters for a link request. What kind of replies do you usually get? Any success?
Yep - I don't want to show you the exact website, but I got a blogroll sitewide from a PR6, Moz Page Authority of 65, and Moz Domain authority of 60. That's just one of many :)
Concerning "broken blogger blogs" google holds the following stance on the matter.
https://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=41931
"Blogger accounts and Blogspot addresses do not expire. Therefore, we can't take away somebody's blog address to give to you. Occasionally people come back to their blogs after long absences, and we want them to be able to find their blog as they left it. If you find some contact information on the blog, you are welcome to deal with the owner directly, to see if they are willing to transfer ownership so you can use that URL. However, we do not give out contact information for the owner of a blog."
To test this even further I used the search operator "site:.blogspot.com "page no longer exists"" which returned aprox. 2370 blogs and NONE of the names could be claimed in my own blogger account.
So to answer your question, YES, Google saw this as a spam tactic and has prevented this from continueing to go on.
I checked out the extension, and it works great. Any tips to find old blog posts, or outdates posts? Seems you could spend hours trying to find posts that are out of date.
Thanks -
Love it. Great inventive way of link building by 'adding value' - similar in that sense to content marketing but far less time consuming! I think if you are restoring an abandoned blog, writing a high quality on-topic piece is a no brainer. Still explain that the site is no longer active so you're still effectively adding value, and like you say you can use it as a resource for those annoying reciprocal link requests.
If you're contacting a webmaster on a blogging platform for which you know of automated broken link trackers (e.g. Wordpress) why not suggest a suitable tool to the webmaster for the future? That way, again you are 'adding value' and they would probably thank you for it (hopefully with a link!). This would give the added benefit of ensuring your competitors could not copy your cunning tactics in the future!
I liked the link building tips, I've been using similar Mozilla plug-ins but have yet to find a good one for chrome. Anyone have some good chrome suggestions? I see "seo for chrome" is about all thats out there at this time.
Simple and time efficient, great work Jon!
I have done #1 manually before and successfully achieved a link, although of course tools makes that kind of thing exponentially easier.
I do think as you say that #3 is a little grey hat but I think the level of greyness depends in how you do it. If you say "this site is moved" that is pretty much a lie, but if you say something like "this site no longer exists but you might be interested in this site" then I think it may be less grey hat. Definitely both clever and fuzzy, though.
Thank Josh! I think you're 100% right. I also think it's worth mentioning that because incontent links are the new thing, it might be worth looking into creating a 3-400 word article on each of them and make sure my anchor text is found deep within some relevant text. Your thoughts?
Love the post, tool and the ideas on how to use it dude! but...
I'm not a huge Chrome use, I have it and use it some tims but I'm a FF lover for life :) So was wondering if anyone knows if this plugin will also be made to work with FF any time soon?
Nathaniel - I used to be a Firefox junkie too, but in the past few months it started getting slow. The only thing holding me back was a few addons (i.e. LinkChecker), but when I found great substitutes for Chrome (Check My Links, PR Checker, Delicious) I had to switch based on speed. I also ran into the problem with Firefox that certain addons weren't updated with the new versions of Firefox, thus making them unuseable. Don't worry, I have nothing against FF, and if that works better for you, there shouldn't be anything holding you back from using it!
Also, I don't think it will be made to work with Firefox just because they're totally uncompatable. Rather what I'd like to see is a Link Checker update so more links can be checked faster.
I use this extension for chrome and it's really awesome.
by the way, nice tips in here. I think I'm gonna try some. Thanks for sharing!
Great post - I've been a Chrome convert ever since the first Beta was launched and I haven't looked at another browser since. The way SEOMoz and Google SEO toolbars integrate with it is phenomenal and doesn't negotiate on speed. Now you've introduced me to a new SEO toy! Thank you - installing it as I write.
Wow, link building made easy. Nice post and thanks for sharing some resources.
Awesome post. An absolut brilliant strategy.
I got the extension and look forward to testing it out. I would say the blogger tip is on a darker shade of grey though. I feel this is a bit misleading and could increase bounce rates a bit.
Over all, great tips and awesome extension suggestions.
Thanks for the tool but it doesn't know how to handle relative links. For example a linke href="https://www.mywebsite.com/page.html" will show up ok but href="/page.html" will show up as broken
This means I'm getting a nightmarish amount of false positives.
That's weird... I have a test suite that I use to check links like these work in the extension and it works ok. Do you have any live examples I could see?
Link building is easy and fun if you know what you are doing, if you have the right tools and if you have an interesting project. :)
Whilst I like the idea of this, I've found that if I locate a broken link, often the site webmaster will be a bit difficult to get in contact with - they are often slightly worse than webmasters with sites without errors. I prefer creating content for people, but I think it's always experimenting with techniques like this.
Thanks for sharing this, I've given you the thumbs up.
Unfortunatley though, like other users above, I'm experiencing troubles with it.
Great post Jon!!
I like your link-outreach application of this tool. I'll have to give that a shot! And I totally agree with you, don't come out at a webmaster with guns blazing, asking for a link. I wrote a post on building relationships rather than links, I think it helps your post, so I'll toss a link up in here:
https://www.whitefireseo.com/links/cultivating-high-return-link-profile/
Help them first (broken links, free stuff, social mentions, a link, etc) and then ask for help.