Seek help correcting large number of 404 errors generated, 95% traffic halt
-
Hi, The following GWT screen tells a bit of the story:
site: http://bit.ly/mrgdD0
http://www.diigo.com/item/image/1dbpl/wrbp
On about Feb 8 I decided to fix a large number of 'duplicate title' warnings being reported in GWT "HTML Suggestions" -- these were for URLs which differed only in parameter case, and which had Canonical tags, but were still reported as dups in GWT.
My traffic had been steady at about 1000 clicks/day.
At midnight on 2/10, google traffic completely halted, down to 11 clicks/day.
I submitted a recon request and was told 'no manual penalty'
Also, the 'sitemap' indexes in GWT showed 'pending' for 24x7 starting then.
By about the 18th, the 'duplicate titles' count dropped to about 600 or so... the next day traffic hopped right back to about 800 clicks/day - for a week - then stopped again, down to 10/day, a week later, on the 26th.
I then noticed that GWT was reporting 20K page-not found errors - this has now grown to 35K such errors!
I realized that bogus internal links were being generated as I failed to disable the PHP warning messages.... so I disabled PHP warnings and fixed what I thought was the source of the errors.
However, the not-found count continues to climb -- and I don't know where these bad internal links are coming from, because the GWT report lists these link sources as 'unavailable'.
I'v been through a similar problem last year and it took months (4) for google to digest all the bogus pages ad recover. If I have to wait that long again I will lose much $$.
Assuming that the large number of 404 internal errors is the reason for the sudden shutoff...
How can I a) verify the source of these internal links, given that google says the source pages are 'unavailable'..
Most critically, how can I do a 'RESET" and have google re-spider my site -- or block the signature of these URLs in order to get rid of these errors ASAP??
thanks
-
Hello Rand, I've been facing a similar problem with my site. I'd really appreciate your response here - http://www.seomoz.org/q/help-fixing-the-traffic-drop-that-started-on-4-september-2012.
-
I wouldn't feel too confident that the numbers and dates Google's showing you are precise or accurate. In fact, we've seen times when GWMT is considerably off. I'd watch how Google crawls your site and look at search traffic to your pages - those are likely leading indicators that things are/will be fixed.
-
Thanks for the replies guys - - I had run Xenu on the site and it found no broken links... but still GWT error count continues to climb, and as of today
Google released a MUCH improved timeline view for the error count --- problem is, it's still showing 58K errors as of yesterday and climbing, long after I fixed them - and it wont show me where it thinks the source is...
These errors are all on internal pages BTW..
Heres the new google view
http://awesomescreenshot.com/0ef1gy6c7
The new GUI also includes a way to mark errors 'fixed' -- one by one!! I need to mark 60 thousand at once!
Also I can see the date these errors started appearing and it just doesnt make sense given that is the day my traffic started reappearing as well..
-
I agree with Rand's suggestions. I just ran a Screaming Frog crawl of the whole site on 10,233 links, 8997 URLs and got no 404s. So I think it's pretty safe to assume you've fixed the 404 issue. Here's the output of the crawl in case you'd like it for a reference: http://www.sendspace.com/file/7zui0v
I'd say:
- Definitely clean up and resubmit your XML sitemap
- Double check your backlink profile with Open Site Explorer and MajesticSEO to be sure that there aren't sites linking to URLs that no longer exist. If you find any of these make sure to 301 redirect them. Just take all the target URLs and dump them into Screaming Frog in list mode. All the links from OSE point to your homepage so they are not an issue, I don't have access to Majestic right now so I couldn't run those for you.
- You can now Submit pages in Google Webmaster Tools as well in the Fetch as Googlebot section. So you may consider submitting some of the new pages the site generates in addition to your reconsideration request to help get Google to re-crawl and find the 404s are gone.
Good luck man and please let us know if nothing changes after you implement these fixes.
-Mike
-
Hi Mark - wow, sounds really rough. I've got a few suggestions:
- First off, you need to make 100% sure that you've actually fixed the issue and that the internal links are pointing to the right places AND any old URLs that may have had internal/external links are either rel=canonicaling or 301 redirecting to the correct, updated locations.
- You might try using a few tools to verify this, including the SEOmoz Crawl Test http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/crawl-test and Screaming Frog: http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/
- When you are ready, submit new XML Sitemaps to Google with the proper URLs. Make sure you've deleted/removed your old ones.
- You can also send the reconsideration request again, indicating that while you're aware this isn't a penalty, you have realized some technical/navigation issues on the site and believe you've now fixed these.
Hope this helps and wish you the best of luck!
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
-
Fake 404 Issue
Hello, I just had a problem my site started showing up 404 issues for all my wordpress pages and post but visually the page was loading with content but yet all pages and software including google WMT was showing the 404 issue. I never found the issue but was able to move the site into a new hosting and restore from a backup and it work. Google found the issue on Jan 27th and they remove all the pages with 404 from the index and I lost most of my top ranking I have since fix the issue and was wondering if google would restore my ranking in such a case? Regards, M
Technical SEO | | thewebguy30 -
What's Worse - 404 errors or a huge .htaccess file
We have changed our site architecture pretty significantly and now have many fewer pages (albeit with more robust content and focused linking). My question is, what should I do about all the 404 errors (keep in mind, I am only finding these in Bing Webmaster tools, not Moz or GWT)? Is it worse to have all those 404 errors (hundreds), or to have a massive htaccess file for pages that are only getting hits by the Bing crawlbot. Any insight would be great. Thanks
Technical SEO | | CleanEdisonInc0 -
Types of SEO Help
I have a web site that is going well but I think it could be better as far as usability and design. Also, I am sure an SEO professional would have some things to do to optimize. It seems though, that all the SEO companies either want to have along term contract or they don't work with my technology. Does anyone know of a company that would take my Visual Studio/C# project and tweak it for usability, design and SEO features for an hourly or set price?
Technical SEO | | Banknotes0 -
Rel Canonical ? please help again!
Hi, I have been looking at the on page section and the grading. And I have noticed on nearly all of my pages an error. No More Than One Canonical URL Tag Moderate fix <dl> <dt>Number of Canonical tags</dt> <dd>2</dd> <dt>Explanation</dt> <dd>The canonical URL tag is meant to be employed only a single time on an individual URL (much like the title element or meta description). To ensure the search engines properly parse the canonical source, employ only a single version of this tag.</dd> <dt>Recommendation</dt> <dd>Remove all but a single canonical URL tag</dd> </dl> <a class="more expanded">Minimize</a> Please how do I make sure these canonicals are working properly, My rankings are getting worst fro long tail and short tail keywords. I am not even ranking for the main keywords "Probate" at all now! Our site is probate, we sell probate, we talk aout probate and now we are out of the top 200??? http://www.finalduties.co.uk Kind Regards Elissa HAyes
Technical SEO | | Chris__Chris0 -
Are my Canonical Links set up correctly?
I have Enable Canonical Links (recommended) on my web site. However, I also have THIS checked: Enable full URL for Home Page Canonical Link (include /default.asp) Is it hurting me??? Keep getting dinged on our report card. We are using the Volusion shopping cart software/platform.
Technical SEO | | GreenFarmParts0 -
Correct Way to Write Meta
OK so this is a really, really basic question. However, I'm seeing some meta written differently to normal and I'm wondering if a) this is correct and b) whether there is any benefit. Normally it's like this: However, I am seeing it written like this is some places: So, the content= and name= are swapped around. I assume the people that did this were thinking that bringing the content forward would mean that Google reads keywords first. Just wondering if anybody knows whether this is good practice or not? Just spiked my interest so apologies for the basic nature of the question!
Technical SEO | | RiceMedia0 -
WordPress & Page Numbers
Hi, I am working on a large WP site for a client and have an issue with duplicate content and page numbers. I am using the Yoast SEO plugin but can't seem to resolve the issue. Let me give an example: If I go to a popular category, for example F1, there are over 10 pages of content for the category and although the URL changes, the Title and Meta Description stay the same. Now...if I was using a template for the title and description I could add the page number variable, but as I am overwriting the template with SEO specific category information I can't use variables and hence the problem! This is such a common problem I know somebody will have an answer! Thanks
Technical SEO | | JonathanSmith0 -
404 - page authority?
If in open site explorer my 404 pages have a higer page authority - what benefit would i see in rankings if I 301 redirected those pages to the right page. For example www.site.com/widget is a 404 but has authority according to open site explorer - but the page i see in the serps is www.site.com/widget/ with the / at the end. so what benefit would i see in rankings if I 301 redirected those pages to the right page?
Technical SEO | | DavidS-2820610