Member Avatar for lemkam

I've got a bit of a problem that I could use some help with. There appear to be an extensive number of sites that are linking to mine, but are using an incorrect link to do so. Aside from searching Google, Yahoo, etc. with the phrase "link:" and then checking each site in the results, which will take FOREVER and is not productive in the least, there has to be another way.

Does someone out there know of another method? If so I'd be very grateful for some insight! I'm the solitary developer of a non-profit web site and don't have the resources/manpower to tackle the task of visiting each site to see if they've linked to us correctly.

Many, many thanks in advance for your help!

Melissa

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by mmiikkee12

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As explained, a single maintainer cannot manually visit hundreds of sites to check broken or mis-typed inbound links. Below is a short, practical plan (discovery -> triage -> fix) that builds on the points already raised by others and gives commands and a ready outreach snippet to use immediately.

Start with low-effort sources: the "links/referrals" reports in webmaster consoles, and your analytics referrals (Acquisition/Referrals). Export any lists you can. Use a backlink index (free checkers or paid tools) to get an additional set of candidates, then merge and dedupe the lists into a spreadsheet so you can prioritize by referring domain and estimated traffic.

If you can access server logs, you can extract actual referring pages and counts quickly. Example (Apache or nginx combined log format):

# list unique referring URLs that mention yourdomain.tld, sorted by frequency
awk -F'"' '{print $4}' /var/log/apache2/access.log | grep -i 'yourdomain.tld' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn

For frequent mis-hosts you control, a host-level permanent redirect is the cleanest fix. Example nginx server block:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name wrong-domain.com;
    return 301 $scheme://www.correct-domain.com$request_uri;
}

If you do not control the referring site, use a concise, polite outreach message and track replies in the spreadsheet. Short template:

Hi — I maintain yourdomain.tld. On [referring page URL] the link points to [bad-URL]. Could you please update it to [correct-URL]? Thanks for your help.

As noted, redirects are ideal when you own the bad target; as asked, if the issue is a different domain, handle it at the host level if you own that domain, or request the change from the other webmaster. If corrections are impossible and links are harmful, use search-engine disavow tools only as a last resort. Set a weekly or monthly check (the log command above in a cron job) so the problem stays small.

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Member Avatar for Rashakil Fol

I've got a bit of a problem that I could use some help with. There appear to be an extensive number of sites that are linking to mine, but are using an incorrect link to do so. Aside from searching Google, Yahoo, etc. with the phrase "link:" and then checking each site in the results, which will take FOREVER and is not productive in the least, there has to be another way.

Does someone out there know of another method? If so I'd be very grateful for some insight! I'm the solitary developer of a non-profit web site and don't have the resources/manpower to tackle the task of visiting each site to see if they've linked to us correctly.

Many, many thanks in advance for your help!

Melissa

Why is it any of your business how others are linking to you? If they are linking to a URL that you removed, then you shouldn't have removed that URL. Put up a redirect if they're pointing at the wrong location.

Member Avatar for lemkam

Why is it any of your business how others are linking to you? If they are linking to a URL that you removed, then you shouldn't have removed that URL. Put up a redirect if they're pointing at the wrong location.

Why is it any of my business?! Because IT'S MY JOB to make it my business, that's why. Most web masters don't have a problem correcting bad links on their site, since dead links on their site make them look bad too.

I'm not going to go into a back and forth about putting up a redirect. It won't work in this case and your answer doesn't address my original question.

So if anyone can answer my original question, THANKS!

Member Avatar for Rashakil Fol

Why is it any of my business?! Because IT'S MY JOB to make it my business, that's why. Most web masters don't have a problem correcting bad links on their site, since dead links on their site make them look bad too.

I'm not going to go into a back and forth about putting up a redirect. It won't work in this case and your answer doesn't address my original question.

So if anyone can answer my original question, THANKS!

Your original question did not even adequately explain what you intend to do when somebody is writing a bad link. The best way to catch bad links is through your server's error logs.

Member Avatar for mmiikkee12

...and if it's a different domain?

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