Google Webmaster Tools Crawl Errors Report

Tap into the power of Webmaster Tools with the crawl error report, a simple list of 404 errors that Googlebot is getting when it visits your website.In a few viewing of this report, I found dozens of links to pages that don't exist. Great, you're thinking. Now what?

Google Webmaster Tools Crawl Error Reveal Lost Links

Create a 301 Redirect List in Google Docs

Google Docs is a simple way to share an active spreadsheet that more than one person will be working on at any given time. I've created a Google Spreadsheet called "301 Redirects" with two columns. If the concept of redirects is new to you, here is more information about 301 redirects and when they should be used.

Now, back to the spreadsheet. On the left is the FROM column where I copy/paste the pages resulting in 404s from the crawl error report. On the right is the TO column, where I paste the URL where I want the page to resolve to.

Mark the to-be-done URLs in red, so as not to mix them up with 301s you've already created.

Determining The Best Page For Your Redirect

A quick glance shows me that a particular page ( http://www.voices.com/voice-mail-greetings.htm ) no longer exists. In order to find the next best URL, I Google site:voices.com voicemail. While it may not be the best approach, it's a quick and dirty way to find out which page Google believes is the most relevant on my site for a given keyword. In this, I could pick a page about voice-overs for phone systems or a page specifically about voicemail greetings.

Google site:yourdomain.com keyword to find the top page for a keyword

Share The Google Spreadsheet with Your Developer

If you're not comfortable editing the .htaccess file, don't. Leave that for the professionals. I use the "Share" feature in Google Docs to send the request to my developer. It's pretty clear that the red rows are the ones to be worked on.

Update Your 301 Redirect Spreadsheet

Double check each and every URL to be sure it resolved correctly on the page you specified. If your site is anything like ours, you're dealing with hundreds of pages there is the potential for pages to get redirected to the wrong ones, or worse yet, redirected to another non-existent page.

Once you've confirmed the link is all good, mark the URL as complete by changing the background color from red to green, and slid the row to the bottom of the list. When you're all done, your spreadsheet should be nice and green, like this:

Completed 301 Redirect Spreadsheet

Wrap-Up

Just like the shepherds of days gone by, we should spend some time finding those lost links and rejoicing when we can bring them home.