Diagnosing and Fixing Crawl Errors in Bulk: A Step-by-Step Guide

As a webmaster or SEO specialist, you’re likely familiar with the importance of ensuring that search engines can crawl and index your website’s pages properly. However, when errors occur during crawling, they can negatively impact your website’s visibility, traffic, and overall online presence.

In this article, we’ll delve into the world of crawl errors and provide a detailed guide on how to diagnose and fix them in bulk using various tools and techniques.

Understanding Crawl Errors

Before diving into the solution, let’s briefly understand what crawl errors are. Crawl errors occur when search engines like Google encounter issues while crawling your website’s pages. These errors can be caused by a variety of factors, including:

• Broken links: Dead or non-existent URLs within your website’s content
• Redirect chains: Infinite loops of redirects that prevent search engines from accessing the final page
• Robots.txt errors: Incorrectly configured robots.txt files that block crawling or indexing
• Server errors: Issues with server-side configurations, such as 500 Internal Server Errors

Tools for Diagnosing Crawl Errors

To identify crawl errors in bulk, you’ll need access to the following tools:

Google Search Console (GSC)

GSC provides a wealth of information about your website’s crawling and indexing status. To use GSC, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to your Google account and navigate to the Search Console dashboard.
2. Select the property you want to monitor (e.g., your website’s URL).
3. Click on “Crawl” from the left-hand menu, then select “Crawl errors”.
4. GSC will display a list of crawl errors, including the error type and the affected URLs.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Screaming Frog is a powerful tool for crawling your website’s structure and identifying crawl errors. Here’s how to use it:

1. Download and install the SEO Spider software.
2. Enter your website’s URL in the “Crawl” field.
3. Select the crawl depth, scope, and any other options as desired.
4. Run the crawl, and Screaming Frog will display a list of crawl errors.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs is another popular tool for identifying crawl errors. To use it:

1. Sign in to your Ahrefs account.
2. Navigate to the “Crawling” section and select “Errors”.
3. Ahrefs will display a list of crawl errors, along with recommendations for fixing them.

Fixing Crawl Errors in Bulk

Once you’ve identified the crawl errors using the tools mentioned above, it’s time to fix them in bulk! Here are some general steps to follow:

Broken Links

To fix broken links, use a combination of manual review and automated scripts. You can start by:

• Using GSC or Screaming Frog to identify broken links.
• Manually reviewing the broken links and updating or removing them as necessary.
• Utilizing tools like Broken Link Checker or LinkChecker to automate the process.

Redirect Chains

To fix redirect chains, you can:

• Use Screaming Frog or Ahrefs to identify the redirect chain.
• Manually review and update the redirects as necessary.
• Utilize tools like Redirect Checker to help with the process.

Robots.txt Errors

To fix robots.txt errors, you can:

• Use GSC to identify the error.
• Manually review and update the robots.txt file as necessary.
• Utilize tools like Robots.txt Editor to help with the process.

Server Errors

To fix server errors, you can:

• Use Screaming Frog or Ahrefs to identify the error.
• Manually review and update the server-side configurations as necessary.
• Utilize tools like Server Status Checker to help with the process.

By following this step-by-step guide, you should be able to diagnose and fix crawl errors in bulk using various tools and techniques. Remember to regularly monitor your website’s crawling and indexing status to prevent future errors from occurring!