How to find broken links with Google Analytics

[Honeybadger]

Here's an easy way to find and fix broken links on your site

1. Open Google Analytics
2. Navigate to Behavior > Site Content > All Pages
3. (make sure your date range is correct)
4. Scrol down to "Primary Dimension: Page (or) Page Title"
5. Select "Page Title"
6. On the next line click "Advanced"
7. In the search box underneath enter the title of your error page (example > "404")
8. Hit "apply"
9. You'll see a list of all your broken links
10. Finally export to Google Sheets or Spreadsheet and fix

Here's the original instruction > www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2010/06/02/how-to-find-and-fix-broken-links

 

[Graybeard]

or

$ grep ' 404 ' access.log | cut -d'"' -f2,3 | sort -u|sort -nr|less

returns --lookma! no wordpress installed codekiddies and wannabe hak0rz
__________________
1 POST /xmlrpc.php HTTP/1.1" 404 27
1 POST /wp/xmlrpc.php HTTP/1.1" 404 27
1 POST /wp/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php HTTP/1.1" 404 27
1 POST /wp-content/plugins/wp-symposium/server/php/index.php HTTP/1.1" 404 27
1 POST /wp-content/plugins/wpstorecart/php/upload.php HTTP/1.1" 404 27
1 POST /wp-content/plugins/wp-property/third-party/uploadify/uploadify.php HTTP/1.1" 404 47
1 POST /wp-content/plugins/wp-property/third-party/uploadify/uploadify.php HTTP/1.1" 404 27
1 POST /wp-content/plugins/uploader/uploadify/uploadify.php HTTP/1.1" 404 27
1 POST /wp-content/plugins/Tevolution/tmplconnector/monetize/templatic-custom_fields/single-upload.php HTTP/1.1" 404 27
1 POST /wp-content/plugins/simple-ads-manager/sam-ajax-admin.php HTTP/1.1" 404 27
1 POST /wp-content/plugins/sharexy/ajaxresponder.php HTTP/1.1" 404 27
1 POST /wp-content/plugins/real3d-flipbook/includes/process.php HTTP/1.1" 404 27
1 POST /wp-content/plugins/mm-forms-community/includes/doajaxfileupload.php HTTP/1.1" 404 27
1 POST /wp-content/plugins/mailpress/mp-includes/action.php HTTP/1.1" 404 27
1 POST /wp-content/plugins/jekyll-exporter/vendor/phpunit/phpunit/src/Util/PHP/eval-stdin.php HTTP/1.1" 404 27
---------------
from another log save
1 HEAD /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 -
1 HEAD /apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png HTTP/1.1" 404 -
1 HEAD /apple-touch-icon.png HTTP/1.1" 404 -
1 HEAD /apple-touch-icon-76x76.png HTTP/1.1" 404 -
1 HEAD /apple-touch-icon-57x57.png HTTP/1.1" 404 -
1 HEAD /apple-touch-icon-152x152.png HTTP/1.1" 404 -
1 HEAD /apple-touch-icon-144x144.png HTTP/1.1" 404 -
1 HEAD /apple-touch-icon-120x120.png HTTP/1.1" 404 -
1 HEAD /apple-touch-icon-114x114.png HTTP/1.1" 404 -
1 GET /yakshmo.gif HTTP/1.1" 404 274
1 GET /yakshmo.gif HTTP/1.1" 404 229
1 GET /yakshmo.gif HTTP/1.1" 404 226
1 GET /yakshmo.gif HTTP/1.0" 404 274
1 GET /wp-login.php HTTP/1.1" 404 271
1 GET /wp-login.php HTTP/1.0" 404 271
1 GET /user HTTP/1.1" 404 263
1 GET /user HTTP/1.0" 404 263
1 GET /sitemap.xml HTTP/1.1" 404 274
1 GET /sitemap.xml HTTP/1.1" 404 225
^^was setting up a domain

*the byte count (last number) must differ by the browser or bot type ... so they are not all unique.
this takes 2 sec to paste the command
add
>file-name.csv and you have a space delimited file to load in excel (or other spreadsheet)

 

[CinarRanic]

First, log into your Google Analytics account and click on the Behavior tab. Then select "Site Content" and then "All Pages." Make sure to set the evaluation period for the amount of time you want to look at. If you check for broken links monthly, set the period for the month since your last check.

 

[thedark]

You can use Google Search Central. It gives you more insights about your search engine presence and crawl stats.

 

[Graybeard]

The real problem I have had in the past is some files like *.js and *.css and images that are in locations other than the HTML
(not relative to the HTML file (not in the same directory))
being 404 --missing. G-A will never show that --only your server's log file and error file will show those.

You can detect most of these issues using your browser's developer tools and loading your webpages, as you create them, with NO CACHE, same as a user or a search engine bot would. Always inspect your work when you finish or change it by adding some file that is new or changed. Don't wait for Google to tell your about your 404 errors --that's just damn lazy.