404s - screaming frog vs. internetmarketingninjas.com difference

[BobGW]

Hello,

internetmarketingninjas.com shows a wopping 3250 404s for our site!

But screaming frog only shows four.

We want to only change the 404s that effect SEO.

What's the next step?

[Andy.Drinkwater]

The best place to look is probably Google Webmaster Tools. Look under Crawl errors and see what is being discovered by Google.

However, a 404 wont cause SEO issues. Google expects to see 404's in a site for all kinds of reasons. It only becomes a problem if you have lots of links leading to those dead pages.

-Andy

[BobGW]

GWT shows no 404s

[Andy.Drinkwater]

So have you confirmed any of these 404's yourself by trying to go to that URL or a page that leads to them?

As I said though, 404's wont harm SEO but it isn't good for user experience if people find dead pages.

-Andy

[BobGW]

All 3250 seem to be 404 links, but very few actually occur as links to dead pages somewhere on the site.

I was under the impression that 404s mattered, and I was hoping to sort out why screaming frog only shows 4 and internetmarketingninjas.com shows 3250.

[dkeipper]

Are you using the free version of screaming frog or the licensed version?  If it's the free version, that could be your problem because it limits your crawl to 500 pages.

[BobGW]

I'm using the full version. Do you find it to be comprehensive?

[dkeipper]

I feel it's comprehensive, however, it's a tool and like most all SEO tools, they're not perfect...and oftentimes get different results between tools.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

It all depends on how and why the 404's are there and if they are linked to. I have worked with a client who killed about 35,000 pages over the course of about a month (to get rid of duplication) and it only had positive effects.

-Andy