- Find your sitemap addressYou need the full address, for example
https://example.com/sitemap.xml. If you aren’t sure, see how to find your sitemap URL. - Open MonitoringChoose Monitoring in the sidebar after you sign in.
- Add the sitePaste the address into XML sitemap address, choose how often to check, and select Start monitoring. The sitemap is read first, and if nothing can be read from it you are told why.
- Wait for the first checkThe site appears with Check queued, then Checking now. The first check starts within 5 minutes. A large site is read in stages.
- Read the first emailWhen the first full pass finishes you get a “now watching” email. Open the report from it, or select the site name on the Monitoring page.
What the controls do
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Schedule | Changes how often the site is checked. Which options appear depends on your plan, and daily checks are limited to some of your sites. |
| Check now | Queues a check straight away. It starts within 5 minutes and can be used once an hour per site. |
| Alerts on / Alerts off | Turns alert and summary emails on or off for that site. |
| Pause / Resume | Stops or restarts checks. Resuming queues a check. |
| Remove | Stops monitoring and deletes the stored record of the site’s pages and links. Past reports stay in your history. |
Changing the schedule re-times the next check from the last one on the new schedule, or queues it now if that date has already passed.
Before you start
- Check your plan. Monitoring is included on Pro and Scale. Without it you can still run scans by hand, and a free account can try monitoring on one site.
- Use the sitemap address, not a page. The address should end in
.xml, or.xml.gzfor a compressed file. If the site has a sitemap index, use the index so every sitemap it lists is followed. - Pick the live site. A staging copy has its own address, its own sitemap and its own history on the Sites page. Monitor the one that visitors see.
- Only add sites you are allowed to audit. That means sites you own, manage or have permission to check.
There is a shortcut. Every finished report has a Monitor this site button at the top. It adds that site using the sitemap you scanned, so there is nothing to retype. It is also a good way to start, because you have already seen what a scan finds.
Choosing a schedule
The options on the Monitoring page depend on your plan. Paid plans with monitoring check weekly, and some of your sites can be checked daily where the plan allows it. If more sites are set to daily than the plan allows, the extra ones run weekly rather than failing.
| Schedule | A good fit for | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly | Most sites: a business site, a blog, a shop that changes at a normal pace. | A link that turns bad on Monday can be reported up to a week later. |
| Daily | A site where a bad link would cost the most: a high-traffic site, one that has been compromised before, or one with many people publishing. | Limited to some of your sites, and a quicker schedule means the monthly link allowance is shared more often. |
What the first few days look like
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| Straight after you add the site | The sitemap is read. If nothing can be read from it, you are told why and the site is not added. |
| Within 5 minutes | The first check starts. It reads pages and checks outbound links, and a large site is read in stages over several checks. |
| When the first full pass finishes | One “now watching” email says how many pages and links were checked and what is flagged at that point. Nothing found during this first pass triggers an alert, because it records what is already on the site (a baseline check). |
| Each later check | Only new or changed pages are read again, plus a rotating slice. A link that is newly flagged, or has become more serious, sends an alert. |
| About once a week | If no other email has gone about the site, a short summary says whether anything is new or how many flagged links are still open. |
When an alert arrives
- Open the report from the button in the email. An alert lists up to 10 new findings, most serious first, with the reason and the page each was found on.
- Read the reason before anything else. It says what the check saw and, for keyword matches, which words.
- Open the page named under Found on and look at the link in place. Search the page source for the anchor text if you cannot see it.
- Decide. Remove or replace a link that should not be there, ignore it if you have checked it and are happy, or mark it reviewed once you have dealt with it.
- Use Re-check on the report to confirm the fix without waiting for the next scheduled check.
An alert means a link was newly flagged. It does not mean the site has been hacked, and many are harmless on inspection.
Mistakes to avoid
- Pasting a page address instead of the sitemap. The sitemap is how Link Signals knows which pages to read.
- Removing a site to start again. Removing deletes the stored record of its pages and links, so the next time it is added the first pass is a new baseline. Pause it instead if you only want a break.
- Turning alerts off and forgetting. Monitoring keeps running and findings still appear in the report, but nobody is emailed. Turn alerts back on when you are done.
- Expecting real-time results. Monitoring is as fresh as its schedule. Check now queues a check that starts within 5 minutes, and can be used once an hour per site.
- Treating All clear as proof. It means none were found in the pages that were read. See accuracy and limits.
Questions
Which sitemap address should I use?
If your site has a sitemap index that lists other sitemaps, use the index. Link Signals follows it.
Can I monitor a site I don’t own?
Only sites you own, manage or have permission to audit. Our terms of service say the same.
Why does the first check take a while?
It reads every page and checks every outbound link. Later checks read only what changed.
Will I be emailed about problems that were already there?
Not as alerts. Findings present at the first full pass are recorded as the starting point and appear in the report and in the first email. Alerts are for what is new or has become more serious afterwards.
What if my plan does not include monitoring?
The Monitoring page says so. A free account can start a short trial on one site from a finished report, once. After that, the monitoring page lists which plans include it.
Can I change the schedule later?
Yes. The next check is re-timed from the last one on the new schedule, or queued straight away if that date has already passed.
Add a sitemap and let Link Signals re-check it for you.
