URL Errors in webmaster tools to pages that don't exist?
-
Hello, for sometime now we have URLs showing up in Google webmaster saying these are 404 errors but don't exist on our website.......but also never have?
Heres an example
cosmetic-dentistry/28yearold-southport-dentist-wins-best-young-dentist-award/801530293
The root being this goo.gl/vi4N4F
Really confused about this? We have recently made our website wordpress?
Thanks
Ade
-
Ok great, thanks for your advice Linda, have a nice day.!
-
Sometimes people make pages like that as landing pages for PPC or other types of campaigns and then abandon them.
I found one like that on one of my sites once by noticing that a page I did not recognize was getting a lot of search traffic--I ended up integrating it into my structure with a new URL, and 301 redirecting the old URL to that new page.
If you think those might be good pages for you, different from similar pages you might already have, you can update them and do that as well.
If they are not especially useful to you, you could just 301 them to the most similar pages. [Are they getting traffic? I think Google must see something in them, if they are still indexed.] They probably wouldn't do any harm if you just leave them, but I'd take care of them anyway.
-
Ok great, thanks Linda, its odd because Google isn't saying where its linked or they are linked from like it normally does.
Did you see this question
would this page http://goo.gl/YoPg0q and this page http://goo.gl/kRq0Pd be classed as ghosting? this wasn't the intention but Ive come across this page whilst doing some site research from along time ago and wondering if it would effect my ranking? Should i put a 301 or do you think its ok to leave?
Thanks, i appreciate your feedback.
-
Sometimes when people link to you, they make a mistake (or even make up pages from what I can tell--I have seen some weird things). In that case, Google will still try to look for it and report back to you that it saw a link to such a page somewhere. [In Webmaster Tools, you will be able to see the referring site.]
What I do in a case like that is ignore it, unless it seems to be from a good site. In that case, I contact the site with a correct link and if I get no reply, I just create a redirect of the link to a relevant page.
-
Hi, yes this is what i mean, this is why I'm so confused by it. It has never been a page on the website, we've checked an triple checked this.
-
A 404 is not a redirect, it means not found. So it is probably the case that someone linked to that page when it was up and Google is following that old link and not finding the page.
-
Sorry Linda, just re-read when you say 301, its in google webmaster tools that its saying 404 error?
Thanks
-
Brilliant, thanks Moz guys, its helpful. One other question as i have you...
would this page http://goo.gl/YoPg0q and this page http://goo.gl/kRq0Pd be classed as ghosting? this wasn't the intention but Ive come across this page whilst doing some site research from along time ago and wondering if it would effect my ranking? Should i put a 301 or do you think its ok to leave? Thanks
-
You mean a 301 redirect? If one of the duplicates is already 301 redirected to the other, like Jaime said, just mark it fixed. [Though if it comes back up, take another look at it, because it means that Google is not seeing the fix you think you made.]
As far as affecting your SEO, duplication can cause the less relevant duplicate to not show up in search but does not cause any penalty as such. [Though make sure your internal linking uses your correct and current URLs.]
-
Ok thanks, Oddly in webmaster tools it shows HTML improvements as duplicate title tags:
/clinic_locations.html
/uk-clinics-luton-wolverhampton-locations/But the .html hasn't been around for ages, maybe 2 years? It has a 404 re-direct. Im wondering 2 things. Should I ignore this and will it be effecting my seo and if so is there any more i can do about it?
Thanks
-
This is likely just a URL from your old website structure that somebody has put a link to somewhere out there on the web (Possibly incorrectly with a typo). I would 301 redirect to the most relevant page you have on the Wordpress site and mark it as Fixed on WMT.
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
-
Magento 1.9 SEO. I have product pages with identical On Page SEO score in the 90's. Some pull up Google page 1 some won't pull up at all. I am searching for the exact title on that page.
I have a website built on Magento 1.9. There are approximately 290,000 part numbers on the site. I am sampling Google SERP results. About 20% of the keywords show up on page 1 position 5 thru 10. 80% don't show up at all. When I do a MOZ page score I get high 80's to 90's. A page score of 89 on one part # may show up on page one, An identical page score on a different part # can't be found on Google. I am searching for the exact part # in the page title. Any thoughts on what may be going on? This seems to me like a Magento SEO issue.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CTOPDS0 -
Change of address webmaster tools
Hi dear experts; I trying to migration to https and follow the guide line that explain how to do it. After redirect 301, I created new property on WMT for ssl version and change the pre address to new one. but as you can see in the attach file, the new property does not appear in the list. the old version of domain is: sharifconsult.ir the new one is : https://sharifconsult.ir yd9fL
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoiransite0 -
Why isn't Google caching our pages?
Hi everyone, We have a new content marketing site that allows anyone to publish checklists. Each checklist is being indexed by Google, but Google is not storing a cached version of any of our checklists. Here's an example:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Checkli
https://www.checkli.com/checklists/ggc/a-girls-guide-to-a-weekend-in-south-beach Missing Cache:
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DfFNPP6WBhsJ:https://www.checkli.com/checklists/ggc/a-girls-guide-to-a-weekend-in-south-beach+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us Why is this happening? How do we fix it? Is this hurting the SEO of our website.0 -
Why isn't Google indexing this site?
Hello, Moz Community My client's site hasn't been indexed by Google, although it was launched a couple of months ago. I've ran down the check points in this article https://moz.com/ugc/8-reasons-why-your-site-might-not-get-indexed without finding a reason why. Any sharp SEO-eyes out there who can spot this quickly? The url is: http://www.oldermann.no/ Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Inevo
INEVO, digital agency0 -
Any downsides of (permanent)redirecting 404 pages to more generic pages(category page)
Hi, We have a site which is somewhat like e-bay, they have several categories and advertisements posted by customers/ client. These advertisements disappear over time and turn into 404 pages. We have the option to redirect the user to the corresponding category page, but we're afraid of any negative impact of this change. Are there any downsides, and is this really the best option we have? Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vhendriks0 -
Why is my Crawl Report Showing Thousands of Pages that Do Not Exist?
Hi, I just downloaded a Crawl Summary Report for a client's website. I am seeing THOUSANDS of duplicate page content errors. The overwhelming majority of them look something like this: ERROR: http://www.earlyinterventionsupport.com/resources/parentingtips/development/parentingtips/development/development/development/development/development/development/parentingtips/specialneeds/default.aspx This page doesn't exist and results in a 404 page. Why are these pages showing up? How do I get rid of them? Are they endangering the health of my site as a whole? Thank you, Jenna <colgroup><col width="1051"></colgroup>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JennaCMag
| |0 -
My landing page changed in google's serp. I used to have a product page now I have a pdf?
I have been optimizing this page for a few weeks now and and have seen our page for up from 23rd to 11th on the serp's. I come to work today and not only have I dropped to 15 but I've also had my relevant product page replaced by this page . Not to mention the second page is a pdf! I am not sure what happened here but any advice on how I could fix this would be great. My site is www.mynaturalmarket.com and the keyword I'm working on is Zyflamend.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KenyonManu3-SEOSEM0 -
End of March we migrated our site over to HubSpot. We went from page 3 on Google to non existent. Still found on page 2 of Yahoo and Bing. Beyond frustrated...HELP PLEASE "www.vortexpartswashers.com"
End of March we migrated our site over to HubSpot. We went from page 3 on Google to non existent. Still found on page 2 of Yahoo and Bing under same keywords " parts washers" Beyond frustrated...HELP PLEASE "www.vortexpartswashers.com"
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mhart0