|
How
to find those broken inbound links
The
Problem: You've
moved or eliminated a Web page, or your whole site. You have followed
the directions on redirecting your pages,
but you'd still like all of those links out there on the Internet
to point to the correct page (or delete the old link). After all,
these refresh pages can easily disappear in a server reconfiguration
or directory cleaning. How do you find all of those inbound links?
The
Solution: Use the Link Search on some search engines.
That's
right, you can find not all, but the majority of pages on the Internet
that are linked to any particular Web page, including your own.
Can
you show me an example?
Sure,
I'm glad you asked. The Web site for Extension Communications
& Educational Support is http://eces.wsu.edu/.
To find pages linking to this site, I can go to the Alta
Vista
search engine and type the following query into the search box:
link:http://eces.wsu.edu/
Click
the "Search"
button, and the search results will find all pages known to Alta
Vista with inbound links to Extension Communications
& Educational Support.
There
are several search engines providing the Link Search capability.
The command can differ from engine to engine. Here is a partial
list:
|
Command |
Search Engine |
| link: |
|
| link.all: |
|
For
best results, use at least two search engines, because one may
pick up pages ignored by another. Once you know the pages that
are linking to your old site, you will hopefully be able to track
down the contact information for the person who can update the
page. Good luck! |
