Audit the old links on a blog

Why old links need an audit

A blog with a few hundred posts has often accumulated thousands of outbound links over the years. Nobody chose most of them again after the day they were published. In that time a company closes, a project is abandoned, a domain lapses, and someone registers it and puts something else on it.

The link on your page has not changed. What it leads to has. This is the case behind taken-over links, and it is the main reason to audit a site you have had a long time, or have just bought.

Who this suits

• A blog that has been running for years and has not been checked since it was written.
• A site you have just acquired. You are responsible for the links on it, including ones you never chose.
• A content refresh. Before updating an old article, it helps to know which of its links have gone.
• A publisher with a back catalogue. Older articles are most likely to link to places that no longer exist.

How to run the audit

1. Scan the whole sitemapA big back catalogue may be bigger than your plan reads. Loading the sitemap tells you, and a larger site is scanned as a sample spread across it. See choosing a plan.
2. Start with the headline and the cardsThe overview ranks the problems in the default order: parked, not registered, out of context, broken, then everything that needs review. Work through them in that order, because the first two can change hands in minutes.
3. Open the Inventory tabIt lists linked domains that expire in the next 90 days and the sites you link to most. Heavily linked domains are the ones whose loss matters most.
4. Decide on each linkReplace it with the source’s new address, link to an archived copy, or remove it. Read the detail panel first: it says why the link was flagged and what to do.
5. Mark it reviewed and re-checkAfter you edit, mark the finding reviewed and use Re-check. It resolves a finding only when the link is gone or no longer flagged.
6. Turn on monitoringDomains lapse slowly. Monitoring checks lapsed and unregistered destinations on every check, so a takeover is reported soon after it happens.

What each finding usually means

A worked example

A small business buys a ten-year-old gardening blog. Before changing anything, the new owner scans it. The headline names two parked domains and three that are not registered, all linked from posts written between 2014 and 2018. A further dozen links are broken, and a handful of keyword matches turn out to be harmless once the owner reads the reasons.

The owner starts with the parked and unregistered links, replacing each with the source’s new address where it can be found, and removing the rest. The broken links are fixed as each post is refreshed. The owner marks everything reviewed, uses Re-check, and sees the urgent findings move to resolved. Monitoring then watches the site, and the first alert a few months later is for an expired domain linked from a post nobody had thought about.

When you have just bought the site

• Scan before you edit anything, so the report records what you inherited. Every scan is saved in History.
• Look at the site’s own domain and certificate. Each scan reads when your domain registration and security certificate run out, flagged within 60 and 21 days. It is worth knowing straight away.
• Treat Hidden and Out of context findings as a warning. They can show that someone added links before you took over. See hidden links.
• Keep the export. The CSV is a dated record of the links you found.

Mistakes to avoid

• Fixing only broken links. A 404 is housekeeping. A domain that has lapsed or changed hands is the real risk.
• Marking nofollow and moving on. It limits what a link passes, but readers who click still arrive at whatever is there now.
• Ignoring everything that is old. An old link to a site that is still fine is not a problem. Judge each by what the report says.
• Assuming a clean scan means every link is sound. A domain that changed hands without lapsing keeps its old registration date and looks established. See accuracy and limits.

How this counts in your LinkSignal

Old posts tend to collect broken links and links to unregistered or expired domains, which are both rows of your site’s external LinkSignal. Clearing them is a practical way to raise it. See the LinkSignal overview for every row and how the score is worked out for the points. LinkSignal is Link Signals’ own metric, worked out only from what this tool finds, and it is not connected to any search engine or third-party score.