There are literally a bazillion SEO tools on the internet (literally!), this post discusses just one such tool; Xenu's Link Sleuth. Many people in the SEO industry are already aware of this tool but many people I've spoken to only treat the tool as a broken link finder. It's so much more than that.
What is Xenu?
Xenu's Link Sleuth is a FREE download (everyone loves free) that runs on all versions of Windows (but not quite on Macs unfortunately). It's a lightweight download and I've never had issues with it crashing or hanging. In a nutshell it's a site crawler and once you point it at a URL it will crawl around the site and spit out a report at the end. Its main focus and branding is all about finding broken links on your site (so where you link internally to a 404 error) but I've found that I use it to solve a whole host of different SEO-related issues.
Problem - How do I find broken links on my site?
This is the most basic use of Xenu in my opinion, but also the most common use. Simply point the program at the homepage of your site, check 'skip external' to avoid it crawling the entire web, and set it going!
What is Xenu?
Xenu's Link Sleuth is a FREE download (everyone loves free) that runs on all versions of Windows (but not quite on Macs unfortunately). It's a lightweight download and I've never had issues with it crashing or hanging. In a nutshell it's a site crawler and once you point it at a URL it will crawl around the site and spit out a report at the end. Its main focus and branding is all about finding broken links on your site (so where you link internally to a 404 error) but I've found that I use it to solve a whole host of different SEO-related issues.
Problem - How do I find broken links on my site?
This is the most basic use of Xenu in my opinion, but also the most common use. Simply point the program at the homepage of your site, check 'skip external' to avoid it crawling the entire web, and set it going!
Problem - How do I get a crawl on my site into Microsoft Excel?
The answer to this one, as you may have guessed is also Xenu! Simply choose the following menu option once the report is run:
The answer to this one, as you may have guessed is also Xenu! Simply choose the following menu option once the report is run:
Problem - How do I check the length of my title tags across my whole site?
Looking at the above data sheet - simply filter for html pages and then check the length of the column titled "Title" - this will give you the length of the title tag. Filter for any above 65 and bingo - there's your to-do list!
Looking at the above data sheet - simply filter for html pages and then check the length of the column titled "Title" - this will give you the length of the title tag. Filter for any above 65 and bingo - there's your to-do list!
Problem - How do I find any 302 redirects on my site?
Xenu to the rescue! In order to catch redirects on your site you need to modify one of the settings on the crawl preferences to "treat redirects as errors":
Xenu to the rescue! In order to catch redirects on your site you need to modify one of the settings on the crawl preferences to "treat redirects as errors":
Then, when you run the report and export to excel redirects will no longer get the status code 200 but will get the true status code, be it 301 or 302! Perfect.
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