In a brilliant move yesterday, Google Webmaster Tools (GWT)  has updated their ‘Crawl Errors’ section by adding the ‘Source URL’ to the Errors for URLs in Sitemaps and Not Found (404) reports. Why is this brilliant? Well previously, for those users with challenges acquiring server log files in order to determined the source of the link for those errors which originated from external URLs, a band-aid redirect was the only option (not very many low level programs would declare the referring page so this was quite a challenge for most). While that corrects the HTTP error it doesn’t address the root cause which was a website owner posting a malformed or outdated link to your website. If this link arrives from a highly reputable source, you’ll be doing them a favour by informing them of the error which will also help with their own site’s user experience and will get you some well earned brownie points. As well, correcting the link would swing any Page Rank (PR) your way and you’d also have a great excuse here to solidify a healthy link relationship.

Show me Where these Dead Links are Coming From

Okay, here’s a snip of the new feature;

The ‘Linked From’ link triggers a nifty little lightbox type window with the sources of the faulty links. Each page listed represents each page where the invalid link was detected. They may be internal links which you’ll need to correct, or they may be links from external sources which you’ll now know exactly where they are originating from. The link source report is found under the URLs in Sitemaps errors and Not Found errors.

Don’t Ignore Your Crawl Errors

Once again, the moral here is that in this cut throat SEO game every little bit counts and if the Search Engines, in their infinite wisdom ( except ‘Live’ and it’s Anti Cloaking Bot :) ) are going to be kind enough to offer up some helpful advice, you’d be silly not to take notice. With this new feature be sure to completely audit each and every item detailed here as they all have the potential to represent a new lead, prospective client, referral or that last back link which bumps you into the next major PR increment. Keep your stick on the ice and don’t ignore your broken links!