Mystery URLs showing in Analytics - All 404s
-
Hi Guys
So we have a whole load of mystery urls showing in analytics .The urls are completely not relevant and have somehow been created
However - when you click on the URLs - they all go to 404 pages - pages not found.
The website is a travel website but is showing pages like
/overcome-fatigue-during-mesothelioma-treatment/ in analytics.
Webmaster is not showing any of these pages - but analytics is showing traffic for them???
My initial thought was that it was a spam URL injection - but they are not pages. They don't exist
Our database is fine, WP admin seems fine - none of these supposed pages have been created on WP - so why are they showing on analytics as having driven traffic???
None of the urls are indexed on Google.
Its a mystery!!!! Can anyone help? Has anyone seen this before????
-
Hi Kristina
Problem fixed - the websites analytics was suffering from Ghost Spam URLs.
A new one for me!
Best
Duncan
-
Very weird! Have you looked at your log files to find the IP requesting those URLs?
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
-
Pages with URL Too Long
I manage a number of Shopify stores for ecommerce clients. MOZ keeps kindly telling me the URLs are too long. However, this is largely due to the structure of Shopify, which has to include 'collections' and 'products'. For example: https://domain.com.au/collections/collection-name/products/colour-plus-six-to-seven-word-product-name MOZ recommends no more than 75 characters. This means we have 25-30 characters for both the collection name and product name. VERY challenging! Questions: Anyone know how big an issue URLs are as a ranking factor? I thought pretty low. If it's not an issue, how can we turn off this alert from MOZ? If it is an issue, anyone got any ideas how to fix it on Shopify sites?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | muzzmoz0 -
Changing URLS: from a short well optimised URL to a longer one – What's the traffic risk
I'm working with a client who has a website that is relatively well optimised, thought it has a pretty flat structure and a lot of top level pages. They've invested in their content over the years and managed to rank well for key search terms. They're currently in the process of changing CMS and as a result of new folder structuring in the CMS the URLs for some pages look to have significantly changed. E.g Existing URL is: website.com/grampians-luxury-accommodation which ranked quite well for luxury accommodation grampians New URL when site is launched on new CMS would be website.com/destinations/victoria/grampians My feeling is that the client is going to lose out on a bit of traffic as a result of this. I'm looking for information or ways or case studies to demonstrate the degree of risk, and to help make a recommendation to mitigate risk.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | moge0 -
Canonical URL Multidomain Geolocation Based
Hey there Mozzers, I have a question on the implementation of the canonical tag. I have 3 TLDs that redirect depending the GeoLocation of the person entering the site. www.example.com www.example.co.uk www.example.com.au The content is the same to all of those. Should I choose 1 of them that all the canonicals should point or should all them point to themselves with the canonical tag?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AngelosS0 -
Canonical URL availability
Hi We have a website selling cellphones. They are available in different colors and with various data capacity, which slightly changes the URL. For instance: Black iphone, 16GB: www.site.com/iphone(black,16,000000000010204783).html White iphone, 16GB: www.site.com/iphone(white,16,000000000010204783).html White iphone, 24GB: www.site.com/iphone(white,24,000000000010204783).html Now, the canonical URL indicates a standard URL: But this URL is never physically available. Instead, a user gets 301 redirected to one of the above URLs. Is this a problem? Does a URL have to be "physically" available if it is indicated as canonical?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | zeepartner0 -
Ecommerce SEO URL Structure Questions
| I am in the process of developing a new Magento ecommerce store. Take for instance this website is in the apparel industry and i have the following main categories. Clothing Shoes Accessories Beauty Sub categories for clothing would be: Dresses Pants jeans Tops Products would be: Kelly Maxi dresses What is the best SEO Structure for this? Main categories obviously: www.example.com/clothing Sub Categories:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WayneRooney
www.example.com/clothing/dresses Or www.example.com/dresses (Zappos seem to pursue the second type) Products:
www.example.com/clothing/dresses/kelly-maxi-dresses/ Or www.example.com/kelly-maxi-dresses ? Which one would be the best way to structure your site? Also what about filters that available in category pages? Say if i were to filter by color. what would be the best URL? I am sure canonical tag is needed here. New to Ecommerce SEO so i need some guidance! |0 -
Which URL structure is much better?
Hi Everybody, Which URL structure is much better? Type 01. http://www.domain.com/category-a/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cprasad
http://www.domain.com/category-a/subcategory-a-1/
http://www.domain.com/category-a/subcategory-a-2/
http://www.domain.com/category-b/
http://www.domain.com/category-b/subcategory-b-1/
http://www.domain.com/category-b/subcategory-b-2/ Type 02. http://www.domain.com/category-a/
http://www.domain.com/subcategory-a-1/
http://www.domain.com/subcategory-a-2/
http://www.domain.com/category-b/
http://www.domain.com/subcategory-b-1/
http://www.domain.com/subcategory-b-2/ How these 2 types can affect for Ranking, Site Links in Google and passing PR from root to other pages? Thanks Prasad0 -
New links not showing in site explorer ?
I have built links to my site this past month that I know are live and in place and some do follow and some no follow ... Are the no follow links just not going to show up in my site explorer data ? And the others - why would they not be showing up yet ? SeoMoz updated thier link data aug 1st , my site has been crawled since then , but this new work I have done for link building have not shown up - None of them ? Its like I did not do any work ? how long could it take for them to show up and affect my site trust ect ? Also is there anything I vould be doing to speed the process up of having the new links found ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jlane90 -
How Many Results Does Google Show From The Same Domain?
Hi, From a few years ago I know 'double listings' were considered prime real estate. These days I can see triple listing, google places, PDFs all from the same domain. Im confused as the what the standard is now. I have been asked for some reverse SEOing to push down some bad press (keyword is the brand name) and am curious to know whether I still can get some high results by making a sub domain, optmising some more internal pages etc. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DigitalLeaf0