How to Use Web Link Validator as a Reciprocal Link Checking Tool

Web Link Validator can help you find out whether a particular link is contained within the specified page(s). Moreover, there are two ways to use Web Link Validator as a reciprocal link checking tool.

For example, we need to find out whether the link www.relsoftware.com is contained within some pages.

1. Press the down arrow by the New button and select New Profile on the list that appears.

2. Starting URLs section: Click the Add button.

3. In the Starting URLs field, we enter the pages that must contain the link to our website.

If the number of such links is rather great, you can use the import feature to import the links from a plain-text or HTML file.

4. Enable the Retrieve links from the specified page only option.

Method I: Using the profile's Error Pages section

5. Select Error Pages.

6. In the Mark the link as broken if the HTML source matches one of the following masks (one per line) field, enter our link using the following mask:

*www.relsoftware.com*

7. Click the Add button, and then click Start to save the settings and start the reciprocal link checking process.

8. When the checking is complete, select the Internal links filter. The broken links with the error: "The page title corresponds to the broken link" contain the link being sought; in the other pages, which are marked as OK, the link was not found.

Method II: Using Page Rules

5. Select Page Rules.

6. Click on the button on the right of the List of Page Rules field and then select New. Enter "Reciprocal Link" as the page rule name.

7. Select condition:

The rule fails if at least one mask from the list matches
OR
The rule fails if all masks from the list match

In the case with a single link, you can select either of the two conditions. If the number of links is two or greater (that can also be a link plus some text), select the condition that fits best.

8. Now enter our link in the The page will be added to the 'Failed page rules' report if all of the following masks match field using the following mask:

*www.relsoftware.com*

You can enter several links and/or additional search text; for instance:

*REL Software*

9. Click the Add button, and then click Start to save the settings and start the reciprocal link checking process.

10. When the checking is complete, the result may be seen through the Failed page rules filter or by generating the Failed page rules report.