Some URLs were not accessible to Googlebot due to an HTTP status error.
-
Hello I'm a seo newbie and some help from the community here would be greatly appreciated.
I have submitted the sitemap of my website in google webmasters tools and now I got this warning:
"When we tested a sample of the URLs from your Sitemap, we found that some URLs were not accessible to Googlebot due to an HTTP status error. All accessible URLs will still be submitted."
How do I fix this? What should I do?
Many thanks in advance.
-
You need to confirm that the URLs are in fact 100% of your URLs going into the site map are accessible.
if it's a big issue in a big site send me the URL in a private message I will use deep crawl to create a XML sitemap for you. The screaming frog tool is excellent as well though does performance well with extremely large sites.
check your robots.txt file this so great tool if in case you have more than one (it happens)
http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/seo-tools/robots-txt-generator/
or
http://tools.seochat.com/tools/robots-txt-validator/
so many great free tools are found right here http://tools.seochat.com/tools/
It could be a number of things although it could be Google being finicky. Run the site through Moz crawler, use feedthebot.com using "tools SEO" or download the free version of http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/ this will tell you if there is an issue. If your site is static you can even create an alternate site map with screaming frog if your site is large use deep crawl or Moz analytics
be certain there are no sitemaps redirecting to each other so no redirects going from the old site map to the new site map. Make certain that the site map is in an XML format e.g. http://example.com/sitemap.xml or if in a different format like https://example.com/sitemap_index.xml make sure the proper format That resolves when you look at the site map is what is going into Webmaster tools. Be certain the site map does not contain over 500 URLs per the site map so example.com/sitemap1.xml and so on keep numbering them appropriately. sometimes Google is overloaded and does not seem to like to play well with certain site maps or the site map is maybe not generating very well on the server and that is fixed later on. If this is a long-term problem speak to your host or developer. My recommendation is if you've done everything I have talked about that you attempt to submit is the sitemap to to Webmaster tools or simply build a new sitemap and submit that.
so if worse comes to worse take the screaming frog and use this URL to send it to Google
http://www.google.com/submityourcontent/business-owner/
I hope that helps,
Thomas
-
Hi, It looks like you have url's placed in your sitemap that have an HTTP status error. You can search for the urls and remove them from your sitemap or make sure they have the right status. Does it say which status error? And does it say which url's? Did you check those url's?When you use Screaming frog spider tool (free), you can search for status error's this is an easy way to find these url's.
Grtz, Leonie
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
-
Use existing page with bad URL or brand new URL?
Hello, We will be updating an existing page with more helpful information with the goal of reaching more potential customers through SEO and also attaching a SEM campaign to the specific landing page. The current URL of the page scores 25 on Page Authority, and has 2 links to it from blog articles (PA 35, 31). The current content needs to be rewritten to be more helpful and also needs some additional information. The downsides are that it has an "bad" URL- no target keyword and uses underscores. Which of the following choices would you make? 1. Update this old "bad" URL with new content. Benefit from the existing PA. -or- 2. Start with a new optimized URL, reusing some of the old content and utilizing a 301 redirect from the previous page? Thank you!
Technical SEO | | XLMarketing0 -
Googlebot size limit
Hi there, There is about 2.8 KB of java script above the content of our homepage. I know it isn't desirable, but is this something I need to be concerned about? Thanks,
Technical SEO | | SSFCU
Sarah Update: It's fine. Ran a Fetch as Google and it's rendering as it should be. I would delete my question if I could figure out how!0 -
403 error
Hey guys, I know that a 403 is not a terrible thing, but is it worth while fixing? If so what is the best way to approach it. Cheers
Technical SEO | | Adamshowbiz0 -
Importance of correction of technical errors
Hello everyone!!! I have question that i know it has been asked so many times. However i am looking for an idea for my specific situation. I own a website about commercial steel. My main focus has been getting incoming links from important companies and sites, while maintaining a good quality site. Ive been struggling with ranks and Page Authority. Ive never put attention to technical errors such as Duplicate Content, 4XX Errors and critical warnings such as Redirects. I have around 70 errors and around 400 warnings. Someone told me that as long as the website is "user friendly" i should worry about that. I have scarce resources to my SEO efforts. Which aspect should i put more effort?. Link Building and Quality Content vs Technical SEO ??? Is there a recommended balance mix towards a better PA, DA and Overall Quality?? I know is difficult, but it would be extremely helpful to hear from you!! Regards.
Technical SEO | | JesusD0 -
WMT - Googlebot can't access your site
Hi On our new website which is just a few weeks old upon logging into Webmaster tools I am getting the following message Googlebot can't access your site - The overall error rate for DNS queries is 50% What do I need to do to resolve this, I have never had this problem before with any of the sites - where the domains are with Fasthosts (UK) and hosting is with Dreamhosts. What is the recommended course of action Google mention contacting your host in my case Dreamhost - but what do you need to ask them in a support ticket. When doing a fetch in WMT the fetch status is a success?
Technical SEO | | ocelot0 -
Long URL
I am using seomoz software as a trial, it has crawled my site and a report is telling me that the URL for my forum is to long: <dl> <dt>Title</dt> <dd>Healthy Living Community</dd> <dt>Meta Description</dt> <dd>Healthy life discussion forum chatting about all aspects of healthy living including nutrition, fitness, motivation and much more.</dd> <dt>Meta Robots</dt> <dd>noodp, noydir</dd> <dt>Meta Refresh</dt> <dd>Not present/empty</dd> <dd> 1 Warning Long URL (> 115 characters) Found about 17 hours ago <dl> <dt>Number of characters</dt> <dd>135 (over by 21)</dd> <dt>Description</dt> <dd>A good URL is descriptive and concise. Although not a high priority, we recommend a URL that is shorter than 75 characters.</dd> </dl> </dd> <dd> URL: http://www.goodhealthword.com/forum/reprogramming-health/welcome-to-the-forum-for-discussing-the-4-steps-for-reprogramming-ones-health/ The problem is when I check the page via edit or in the admin section of wordpress, the url is a s follows: http://www.goodhealthword.com/forum/ My question is where is I cannot see where this long url is located, it appears to be a valid page but I cant find it. Thanks Pete </dd> </dl>
Technical SEO | | petemarko0 -
Old URL redirect to New URL
Alright I did something dumb a year a go and I'm still paying for it. I changed my hyphenated URL to the non-hyphenated version when I redesigned my website. I say it was dumb because I lost most of my link juice even though I did 301 redirects (via the htaccess file) for almost all of the pages I could find in Google's index. Here's my problem. My new site took a huge hit in traffic (down 60%) when I made the change and even though I've done thousands of redirects my old site is still showing up in the SERPS and send much if not most of my traffic. I don't want to take the old site down in fear it will kill all of my traffic. What should I do? Is there a better method I should explore then 301 redirects? Could the other site be affecting my current rank since it's still there? (FYI...both sites are built on the WP platform). Any help or ideas are greatly appreciated. Thank you! Joe
Technical SEO | | kaje0 -
URLs: To Change or Not to Change
Hello, We recently launched a redesigned site in Drupal in December of last year. We are an eco-travel company. My current URL's look like this: /africa-and-middle-east/kenya-tanzania /central-south-america/galapagos-islands My pages have good term targeting grades, and the rankings for the terms we are targeting - "kenya and tanzania safaris" and "galapagos islands cruises" are decent, but not great - most are on page 2 or 3. The one URL where I targeted our most important term, "amazon river cruises," I am still on page 2. /central-south-america/amazon-river-cruises My questions are: Did I miss an opportunity with the rest of the URL's, and should I consider changing the rest to more targeted terms with 301s? Since the new site launched in January, perhaps I have not given enough time for my new URL's to index and mature. Would it be easier to set up landing pages with unique article content that targets terms such as "galapagos islands cruises" and "kenya and tanzania safaris"? If so, how can I do it in such a way as to not "compete" with the pages I want to drive them to? This also raises the question of redirecting the same URL twice i.e. I would have 2 redirects in place for the same url e.g. from the former site to the new site, and yet another redirect to the most-recent URL. Is that a problem? Sorry if I've asked too many questions in one post. 😉 Any advice appreciated.
Technical SEO | | csmithal0