WPBeginner

Beginner's Guide for WordPress

  • Blog
    • Beginners Guide
    • News
    • Opinion
    • Showcase
    • Themes
    • Tutorials
    • WordPress Plugins
  • Start Here
    • How to Start a Blog
    • Create a Website
    • Start an Online Store
    • Best Website Builder
    • Email Marketing
    • WordPress Hosting
  • Deals
  • Glossary
  • Videos
  • Products
X
☰
Beginner's Guide for WordPress / Start your WordPress Blog in minutes
Choosing the Best
WordPress Hosting
How to Easily
Install WordPress
Recommended
WordPress Plugins
View all Guides

WPBeginner» Blog» WordPress Plugins» How to Analyze Your Links in WordPress with LinkPatrol

How to Analyze Your Links in WordPress with LinkPatrol

Last updated on August 7th, 2014 by Editorial Staff
369 Shares
Share
Tweet
Share
Pin
Special WordPress Hosting offer for WPBeginner Readers
How to Analyze Your Links in WordPress with LinkPatrol

If you have been blogging for a while, then you probably have hundreds of links pointing to other sites from your blog posts. These outgoing links play an important role in your site’s overall search engine optimization (SEO). If you want to analyze these external links to find broken links or links that have changed, then it’s normally a manual process. Thankfully our friends over at Search Engine Journal created an easier solution. In this article, we will show you how to analyze your links in WordPress with LinkPatrol.

What is LinkPatrol?

LinkPatrol is a WordPress plugin that helps you find, review, and clean up links in your posts and pages. You can sort by domain, sort by authors, keywords, etc. It allows you take action such as nofollow or strip links in bulk thus saving you a lot of time.

Why You Need to Monitor and Fix Outbound Links in WordPress?

Outbound links can cause several issues that could hurt your site’s SEO rankings. Some of them are:

1. Linkjuice flow

When you link to any URL, search engines count it as an endorsement. This means you are actually sharing your SEO points with the site you are linking to thus the term linkjuice.

You are probably thinking that isn’t it good to link to websites you love and find useful? Actually it is very good, but the problem is that you have no control on the content of those websites.

The content that you linked to can be changed by the website owner. They can sell the website to someone else who may change it or take it down. Worst of all, the domain could expire and some one acquires it to put inappropriate content there. You don’t want to be associated with those sites.

2. Bad User Experience

Sometimes website owners move their site to a new location or change the permalink structure. If you were linking to an article on their site, then your users will see a 404 page instead of the content you linked to. This creates bad experience for your users which is not good for your website.

3. Poor Usage of Anchor Text

Anchor text is the keyword or phrase you link to. See this example:

<a href="http://www.example.com" rel="nofollow">Example Website</a>

In this example, the Example Website is the anchor text.

Anchor text describes to your users what they are going to find when they click on that link. If you allowed guest authors in the past, then there is a very good chance that they used generic terms, or keywords for SEO purposes. You may want to get on top of that now that the Google algorithm has changed.

4. Outdated Information

Sometimes you link to an article which contained useful information at that time. However, after a while this information becomes incorrect or outdated.

For example, at WPBeginner we often show our users how to use different plugins and tools to do something on their WordPress site however sometimes those plugins and tools become outdated or their authors stop supporting them. We try our best to replace those links with the most up-to-date tools and plugins.

How to Fix External Links in WordPress

First thing you need to do is install and activate the LinkPatrol plugin. Upon activation you will notice LinkPatrol menu item in your WordPress admin bar. Clicking on it will take you to LinkPatrol Scanner.

Scan your WordPress site for outbound links

On the LinkPatrol Scanner page, you need to click on the Scan Now button. LinkPatrol will now scan all your WordPress posts, pages, and custom post types for outbound links. Once the scan is finished, it will redirect you to the Reports Dashboard where you will see the overview of all your outbound links.

LinkPatrol Reports Dashboard

To see more details, you need to click on the Domains Report tab where you can see all the domains you have linked to. LinkPatrol will show you each domain, and how many times you have linked to each domain.

LinkPatrol domain reports

You can add the NoFollow tag to any domain by simply clicking on the NoFollow checkbox next to it. LinnkPatrol will add a nofollow tag to all the links pointing to that domain. You can also remove all links pointing to a particular domain by clicking on the Strip checkbox next to it.

You can also view all the links for each domain by clicking on the link count next to it.

See all the links pointing to a particular domain

Author report tab shows links created by each author on your website.

Keyword Search tab allows you to search your links for specific keywords. LinkPatrol will look for the keyword in anchor text and link URLs.

Search for links by keyword

Remove or NoFollow All Links to a Domain in WordPress

LinkPatrol allows you to easily remove or add a nofollow tag to all links pointing to a particular domain name. Go to LinkPatrol » Nofollow/Strip. Add the domain you want to target and select to nofollow or strip.

Remove or nofollow all outbound links

We hope that this article helped you analyze your links in WordPRess. fix and manage outbound links on your WordPress site.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Google+.

369 Shares
Share
Tweet
Share
Pin
Popular on WPBeginner Right Now!
  • Checklist

    Checklist: 15 Things You MUST DO Before Changing WordPress Themes

  • How to Properly Move Your Blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org

  • Error Establishing a Database Connection in WordPress

    How to Fix the Error Establishing a Database Connection in WordPress

  • Revealed: Why Building an Email List is so Important Today (6 Reasons)

    Revealed: Why Building an Email List is so Important Today (6 Reasons)

About the Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi. Trusted by over 1.3 million readers worldwide.

The Ultimate WordPress Toolkit

15 Comments

Leave a Reply
  1. lavanya says:
    Apr 16, 2016 at 1:53 am

    Great plugin it is really working well thank you

    Reply
  2. Ray John says:
    Aug 20, 2014 at 9:08 pm

    Slobodan, do you offer discounts? :)

    Reply
  3. Julien Simon says:
    Aug 20, 2014 at 12:28 pm

    Why does the article mention “2. Bad User Experience” when it does not look like the plugin checks for broken links (I can’t see that from the demo anyway)

    Reply
  4. Andy Gibson says:
    Aug 13, 2014 at 1:37 pm

    You should mention it’s a paid tool and not free in the article.

    Reply
  5. WPBeginner Staff says:
    Aug 10, 2014 at 6:27 pm

    Actually LinkPatrol is a totally different plugin than Broken Link Checker.

    Reply
    • ConvivialVisits says:
      Aug 11, 2014 at 9:33 am

      In your experience does LinkPatrol work well for LARGE WordPress sites? The free Broken Link Checker became a performance problem for our site in recent months, and we are looking for a replacement that does not churn through the database so heavily in its use.

      Reply
      • Slobodan Manic says:
        Aug 15, 2014 at 5:09 am

        Disclaimer: I’m part of the team that created LinkPatrol.

        We’ve been using it at Search Engine Journal (16K+ posts) before it was publicly available and have had no performance issues at all. The way LinkPatrol works is that it scans all your links when your first install it and then scans individual posts when you publish them, or edit after publishing. The initial scan took around 20 seconds at Search Engine Journal and with close to 70K links we’re seeing no performance issues.

        Reply
        • Abhishek Prakash says:
          Aug 19, 2014 at 8:39 am

          Hi @slobodanmanic:disqus

          Any scope of adding features like “broken link checker” or outgoing links to “low quality sites”?

    • Nancy Hutson Hale says:
      Aug 11, 2014 at 11:58 am

      I know. The question was how to recognize bad links, and the answer for me, is to use Broken Link Checker.

      Reply
    • Patrick Healy says:
      Aug 17, 2014 at 11:32 am

      For most sites, Broken Link Checker manages links to a more than satisfactory degree. I’ve found that it has even helped me to ascertain shoddy hosts from good ones due to sporadic checks on the part of BLC. When I’ve gone back the links are find but if I keep getting alerts that tells me the host is not up as often as they’d have you believe.

      Reply
  6. Abhishek Prakash says:
    Aug 7, 2014 at 12:02 pm

    But how can one recognize the bad links? For example, how would I know that if an outgoing link is leading to error 404?

    It costs like $100. I can spend that much if it gives me a little more than just providing all the links on my website.

    Reply
    • Nancy Hutson Hale says:
      Aug 8, 2014 at 10:06 am

      Use the free plugin Broken Link Checker to check for bad links. I’ve been using if for 4 months, and it works very well.

      Reply
      • Abhishek Prakash says:
        Aug 11, 2014 at 11:39 am

        Thanks for the plugin suggestion Nancy.

        Reply
    • William Nettmann says:
      Aug 10, 2014 at 10:49 am

      I use Broken Link Checker – free. See https://wordpress.org/plugins/broken-link-checker/

      Reply
      • WPBeginner Staff says:
        Aug 10, 2014 at 6:09 pm

        First backup your live site completely. Instructions:
        https://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/how-to-create-a-complete-wordpress-backup-for-free-with-backwpup/

        After that, you need to delete the theme you have re-worked from live site.

        Upload the customized theme from your local server to your live site.

        Hope this answers your question.

        Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Thanks for choosing to leave a comment. Please keep in mind that all comments are moderated according to our comment policy, and your email address will NOT be published. Please Do NOT use keywords in the name field. Let's have a personal and meaningful conversation.

Over 1,320,000+ Readers

Get fresh content from WPBeginner

Featured WordPress Plugin
WPForms Logo
WPForms
Drag & Drop WordPress Form Builder Plugin. Learn More »
How to Start a Blog How to Start a Blog
I need help with ...
Starting a
Blog
WordPress
Performance
WordPress
Security
WordPress
SEO
WordPress
Errors
Building an
Online Store
Useful WordPress Guides
    • 7 Best WordPress Backup Plugins Compared (Pros and Cons)
    • How to Fix the Error Establishing a Database Connection in WordPress
    • Why You Need a CDN for your WordPress Blog? [Infographic]
    • 25 Legit Ways to Make Money Online Blogging with WordPress
    • Self Hosted WordPress.org vs. Free WordPress.com [Infograph]
    • Free Recording: WordPress Workshop for Beginners
    • 24 Must Have WordPress Plugins for Business Websites
    • How to Properly Move Your Blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org
    • 5 Best Contact Form Plugins for WordPress Compared
    • Which is the Best WordPress Popup Plugin? (Comparison)
    • Best WooCommerce Hosting in 2019 (Comparison)
    • How to Fix the Internal Server Error in WordPress
    • How to Install WordPress - Complete WordPress Installation Tutorial
    • Why You Should Start Building an Email List Right Away
    • How to Properly Move WordPress to a New Domain Without Losing SEO
    • How to Choose the Best WordPress Hosting for Your Website
    • How to Choose the Best Blogging Platform (Comparison)
    • WordPress Tutorials - 200+ Step by Step WordPress Tutorials
    • 5 Best WordPress Ecommerce Plugins Compared
    • 5 Best WordPress Membership Plugins (Compared)
    • 7 Best Email Marketing Services for Small Business (2019)
    • How to Choose the Best Domain Registrar (Compared)
    • The Truth About Shared WordPress Web Hosting
    • When Do You Really Need Managed WordPress Hosting?
    • 5 Best Drag and Drop WordPress Page Builders Compared
    • How to Switch from Blogger to WordPress without Losing Google Rankings
    • How to Properly Switch From Wix to WordPress (Step by Step)
    • How to Properly Move from Weebly to WordPress (Step by Step)
    • Do You Really Need a VPS? Best WordPress VPS Hosting Compared
    • How to Properly Move from Squarespace to WordPress
    • How to Register a Domain Name (+ tip to get it for FREE)
    • HostGator Review - An Honest Look at Speed & Uptime (2019)
    • SiteGround Reviews from 1032 Users & Our Experts (2019)
    • Bluehost Review from Real Users + Performance Stats (2019)
    • How Much Does It Really Cost to Build a WordPress Website?
    • How to Start a Podcast with WordPress (Step by Step)
    • How to Choose the Best Domain Name (8 Tips and Tools)
    • How to Setup a Professional Email Address with Google Apps and Gmail
    • How to Install Google Analytics in WordPress for Beginners
    • How to Move WordPress to a New Host or Server With No Downtime
    • Why is WordPress Free? What are the Costs? What is the Catch?
    • How to Make a Website in 2019 – Step by Step Guide
Deals & Coupons (view all)
Dreamhost
DreamHost Coupon
Get 40% OFF on DreamHost and get a Free Domain.
Elegant Themes
Elegant Themes Deal
Get all 87 amazingly beautiful WordPress themes by Elegant Themes for only $69. That is like $0.79 per theme!
Featured In
About WPBeginner®

WPBeginner is a free WordPress resource site for Beginners. WPBeginner was founded in July 2009 by Syed Balkhi. The main goal of this site is to provide quality tips, tricks, hacks, and other WordPress resources that allows WordPress beginners to improve their site(s).

Site Links
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • FTC Disclosure
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  • Free Blog Setup
Our Sites
  • OptinMonster
  • MonsterInsights
  • WPForms
  • SeedProd
  • Nameboy
  • Awesome Motive

Copyright © 2009 - 2019 WPBeginner LLC. All Rights Reserved. WPBeginner® is a registered trademark.

WordPress hosting by HostGator | WordPress CDN by MaxCDN | WordPress Security by Sucuri.