Boost SEO with Arclab Website Link Analyzer — Step‑by‑Step TutorialImproving a website’s SEO often comes down to solid technical foundations: clean site structure, fast pages, good internal linking, and—importantly—no broken links. Arclab Website Link Analyzer is a desktop tool that crawls sites, finds broken links, checks redirects, and reports other link-related issues that can harm user experience and search-engine rankings. This step‑by‑step tutorial shows how to use Arclab Website Link Analyzer to find and fix link problems, interpret the results for SEO gains, and incorporate regular link audits into your workflow.
What Arclab Website Link Analyzer does (brief)
Arclab Website Link Analyzer crawls a website like a search‑engine bot, follows links, records HTTP status codes, and produces reports on:
- broken internal and external links (4xx errors),
- server errors (5xx errors),
- redirects (3xx codes),
- URL structure and duplicate URLs,
- anchor texts and link targets,
- sitemap generation and exportable reports.
Note: The core benefit for SEO is removing or repairing link issues that cause poor user experience and lost crawl budget.
Before you start: prerequisites and settings
- System: Windows (Arclab is a Windows desktop app).
- Access: Local copy or permission to crawl the site (avoid crawling sites you don’t own without permission).
- Prepare:
- A list of start URLs (home page and any key subpages).
- Sitemap.xml or robots.txt (optional, but helpful).
- Credentials if you need to crawl password‑protected areas (if supported).
Open the program and check Preferences → General and Crawl settings:
- Set maximum crawl depth and maximum pages to crawl to match site size.
- Configure user‑agent string (optional) so server logs identify the crawl.
- Respect robots.txt if required.
- Increase timeout values if the server responds slowly.
Step 1 — Configure a new project and start URLs
- Click “New Project” and name it (e.g., “Site Audit — example.com”).
- Add the primary start URL(s): homepage and any important subfolders (blog, shop).
- If available, import sitemap.xml to seed the crawl.
- Set crawl limits:
- For first full audit: allow enough pages to cover the whole site (or a high limit).
- For routine checks: lower the maximum to crawl only recent pages.
Tip: For large sites, run a staged crawl—crawl sections separately to avoid hitting server limits.
Step 2 — Run the crawl and monitor progress
- Start the crawl. The app will queue URLs and begin checking them.
- Watch the live dashboard: it shows found pages, errors, and progress.
- If the crawl stalls, check:
- Network connectivity,
- robots.txt rules,
- server rate limits (slow down or pause the crawl).
Let the crawl complete for a thorough audit. For big sites this may take time; you can also export partial results to start triage.
Step 3 — Identify broken links and HTTP errors
After the crawl finishes, switch to the report or results view.
Key things to scan:
- 4xx errors (Not Found / Broken links): These often cause poor UX and lost link equity. Prioritize fixing high‑traffic pages with broken links.
- 5xx errors (Server errors): Require server-side fixes; coordinate with hosting or dev teams.
- 3xx redirects: Check for redirect chains and loops. Replace redirects with direct links where possible to preserve link equity.
- External broken links: Decide whether to update, remove, or replace with archived/alternate sources.
Sort results by status code and by the number of inbound links to identify the most impactful fixes.
Step 4 — Fixing issues (actionable guidance)
For each broken link or problem identified:
- 404 (internal):
- If the page should exist: restore content or recreate the page.
- If intentionally removed: implement a 301 redirect to the most relevant page.
- If no replacement: remove the link or update anchor to a relevant resource.
- ⁄302 redirects:
- Avoid multiple hops. Point links directly to the final destination.
- Convert temporary 302s to 301s if the move is permanent.
- 5xx errors:
- Check server logs, hosting, application errors. Roll back recent deployments if needed.
- External links:
- Prefer linking to authoritative, maintained resources.
- If the external resource is down, replace the link or link to an archived copy (e.g., Wayback) as a temporary measure.
- Anchor text:
- Ensure descriptive, keyword‑relevant anchor text for internal links without keyword stuffing.
Record fixes, assign owners, and set deadlines.
Step 5 — Re‑crawl and verify fixes
After applying fixes, re-run the crawl (or re‑crawl specific URLs). Verify:
- Previously broken links now return 200 (OK), or correctly redirect.
- Redirect chains are eliminated.
- Server errors are resolved.
Document changes and keep a history of audits to measure improvement over time.
Using reports to prioritize SEO work
Arclab’s export features let you create CSV or HTML reports. Prioritize fixes by:
- Pages with the most inbound internal links (high impact).
- Pages with the highest organic traffic (use analytics to combine datasets).
- Errors on key conversion pages (checkout, signup).
Combine Arclab results with Google Search Console and analytics to see which broken links affect indexing and traffic.
Advanced tips
- Schedule periodic crawls (weekly/monthly) to catch regressions early.
- Use filters to isolate subdomains, subfolders, or parameterized URLs.
- Export a cleaned sitemap (XML) from Arclab and submit to Search Console after fixes.
- For multilingual sites, ensure hreflang links are correct and don’t point to broken pages.
- Integrate audit findings into your backlog (JIRA, Trello) for tracking.
Common pitfalls and how to avoid them
- Crawling too aggressively: throttle crawl rate to avoid server strain.
- Ignoring external link decay: set a routine to check top outbound links.
- Fixing low‑impact 404s before high‑impact ones: always triage by traffic/link value.
- Not correlating with analytics: a 404 on a low‑traffic page may be low priority.
Final checklist (quick)
- Crawl entire site or key sections.
- Export errors and sort by impact.
- Fix server errors, broken links, and redirect chains.
- Re‑crawl and confirm fixes.
- Submit updated sitemap to search engines.
- Schedule recurring audits.
Arclab Website Link Analyzer is a practical tool for keeping link health in check. Regular link audits reduce friction for users and search engines, protect your crawl budget, and help preserve ranking signals—simple, iterative maintenance that pays off in SEO stability and improved user experience.
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