URLs appear in Google Webmaster Tools that I can't find on my own site?!?
-
Hi,
I have a Magento e-commerce site (clothing) and when I had a look through some of the sections in Google Webmaster Tools I found URLs that I can't find on my site.
For example, a product url maybe http://www.example.co.uk/product-url/ which is fine. In that product there maybe three sizes of the product (Small, Medium, Large) and for some reason Googlebot is sometimes finding a url like:
http://www.example.co.uk/product-url/1202/ has been found and when clicked on is a live url (Status code: 200) with is one of the sizes (medium). However I have ran a site crawl in Screaming Frog and other crawl tests and can't seem to find where Googlebot is finding these URLs.
I think I need to:
1. Find how Googlebot is finding these urls?
2. Find out how to keep out of index (e.g. robots.txt, canonical etc....
Any help would be much appreciated and I'm happy to share the URL with members if they think they can have a look and help with this problem. I can share specific URLs which might make the issue seem clearer, let me know?
Thanks,
Darrell
-
No problem, glad it resolved the problem.
There are a number of possibilities, probably through one of the following;
- XML sitemap
- Faceted navigation
- Magento pinged Google when the page was created
-
Cheers John, sorted the issue! Appreciate your expertise.
-
Thanks John, your reply was really helpful and I've now done that for the 4000 simple product and now those URLs are returning 404 pages, which is great. Well, just going to see if I can find a mass import 301 redirect extension for Magento to 301 redirect these urls to the homepage so I can redirect them rather than leave as 404 pages.
How do you think Googlebot found those pages as there is no links to them? Maybe through a link when the simple products were loaded to the cart?
-
What is the visibility set to on the simple products for different sizes? If it's set to "Catalog" it will still be crawlable but not appear in your website's internal search results.
Setting the visibility to "Not Visible Individually" should resolve this issue.
-
I had a similar issue (not Magento), turns out it was in the sitemap that was submitted to WMTs, did you check there?
check the url in the open site explore too, it might tell you if any urls are linking to it
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Google Indexing Multi-Store Best Practice
Hi Guys, We currently have a main store view and a uk store view setup with a Litespeed Redirect for our website, redirecting UK IP Customers to the UK Store. We recently noticed that we were running into some issues with Google indexing pages from the uk site as well as the main store view. With trying to avoid duplicate content, my question being: What is the best practice for google indexing the UK and Main store views? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Web Design | | centurysafety0 -
Custom HTML or WordPress, it's Time to Decide
Today I start the face to face interviews with website companies. So far most have pushed WordPress, few have offered either and one insisted on Joomla. Our 50+ products and services are primarily customized, so we sell -10 on our shopping cart. We rely primarily on organic Google rankings, SEO and content is critical. What do you, my fellow Mozzers, recommend for our next website platform for our mobile world and Google friendliness? TY, KJr
Web Design | | KevnJr0 -
Changing top level navigation between site sections
We've got an internal proposal to change our top level nav depending on the section of the site. For example, on our homepage it might read: Products, Library, About with relevant links dropping down below. As we have varied products, the drop down underneath it would include the various families. When arriving on the product family page the top-level nav would change to represent more specific offerings. For example: xxx.com 1. Products; 2. Library; 3. About xxx.com/xxx 1. Product family 1; 2. Product family 2; 3. Product family 3; 4. Library; 5. About What are the SEO/UX implications of this? It seems confusing but allows more specific navigation via the main nav depending on the section of the site. Also it seems that an alternating TLN might not be too Google-friendly.
Web Design | | gwelch0 -
Any body can help me to make my web site seo freindly?
any body can help me to make my web site seo freindly? i have not big budget please email me fabric35@hotmail.com
Web Design | | fabric-fabric0 -
What is the longest you would go back to ressurrect links that should have been 301's?
I have never thought of anything beyond a site that was possibly developed a month or two ago, but an interesting possible client has come along and begs a question. They had their site "redesigned" in April 2014 and it appears whomever did the work did not realize what a 301 was for. Using ahrefs or MajesticSEO, they have gone from roughly 15,000 referring pages to 500 and the time line perfectly intersects the redesign. Sooooo, just wondering if any of you geniuses has ever gone back that far to try and pull off a 301.... I am actually just thinking of a link building / content marketing plan but thought it was an interesting question. Thanks for the help, Robert
Web Design | | RobertFisher1 -
How Can I Make My Site iPhone Friendly?
I have been looking into making my website for iphone friendly as my analytics are not great for the iphone and I know when I try to navigate around it on an iphone it can be tough. I was told that if I make changes to the layout that it would affect my layout across everything, which I did not want to do. So I have two questions: Is this correct regarding the layout? If so, if you did something like m.waikoloavacationrentals.com which would be the mobile version how would that possibly effect your rankings with regards to the traffic distribution? Any feedback would be appreciated. Also if anyone has any experience in doing this I would be interested in discussing further.
Web Design | | RobDalton0 -
What's so great about Thesis framework?
I keep hearing about how great Thesis is for SEO. But when I look at the code, it doesn't look like anything special to me -- they followed the basics (proper title, header usage, etc.), pages load quickly, and they packaged things like title and meta control with the theme itself, but none of those things seem particularly special to me. Plenty of SEO plugins give you the same control over title & meta (and the best ones go beyond what Thesis offers) and it's easy to make sure the code is clean. What am I missing?
Web Design | | EricOliver1