Frequently Asked Questions
Q: I already run a link checker, why do
I need LinkScrubber?
A: Traditional link checkers only check web server result codes
to determine if the link is good or not. However, LinkScrubber
actually analyzes the page content, among other signals from a
website, to determine if the website is in a domain park, default
hosting page, or many other things that claim to be "200 OK".
Q: What kind of links does LinkScrubber
find that my link checker misses?
A: TONS! See some examples of
what can show
up as "200 OK" and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Q: Why did LinkScrubber miss a domain
parked page?
A: Domain parks change their pages all the time, report it and we'll
add their new page format.
Q: How does LinkScrubber identify bad
sites?
A: LinkScrubber uses many fingerprints that have been identified
over a period of years that signal a site has changed into a parked
page, suspended account or even hacked.
Q: Why did the 404-like page detector
flag an active site as 404?
A: 404-like page detection is very complicated and there will
be some false positives from time to time as we expand our data and
fine tune the process. However, it's capabilities in detecting
offline sites far outweigh the few false positives. Report the
problem link and we'll incorporate information to avoid it in the
future.
Q: Why didn't LinkScrubber get the
proper javascript redirect?
A: The JavaScript redirect processing does the best it can to
interpret certain code short of actually running the actual
JavaScript. What that means is there will be some scripts
LinkScrubber either can't follow or gets confused with the final
URL. Report those Javascript redirects that fail and if possible,
we'll improve LinkScrubber's ability to process that code.
Q: Do I have to crawl my site every time
I want to check external links?
A: No! You can crawl any time, but it's not required as we save the
external link list once your site is crawled. You may recheck your
previous copy of your external links at any time, or recrawl your
site to refresh that list.
Q: Why doesn't my link checker find all
those 404 pages LinkScrubber finds?
A: The answers are many, but basically it's a lot of poorly
developed websites that simply don't return "404" error codes when a
page isn't found and it's a wildly rampant issue.
Q: How can I try LinkScrubber?
A: Join our alpha testing by sending your email request to
"register" @ this domain and include the URL of the site you want
link checked if you're approved.