Locating 404 Page Errors for Deletion
-
On my SEOmoz report, there are several 404 pages that I assume need deletion. Yes? When I am looking at my pages from the back-end of WordPress, how do I identify these to delete or fix them? In the list of pages I have created, it is not at all apparent when I click into "edit" the page that any of these are broken pages. I think the 404 pages are urls from pages that I changed the url to be more seo friendly, but they don't really exist. I hope this makes sense - it is baffling to me : )
Thank you for any insight and help with getting these cleared. The errors are listed below from the report.
Sheryl
|
404 : Error
http://durangocodentists.com/durango-dentists-why-greg-mann/dentists-in-durango-co/Cosmetic_Dentistry_Services_Teeth_Whitening_Montezuma_CO.html 404 1 0 404 : Error
http://durangocodentists.com/durango-dentists-why-greg-mann/dentists-in-durango-co/General_Dentistry_Services_White_Fillings_Montezuma_CO.html 404 1 0 404 : Error
http://durangocodentists.com/durango-dentists-why-greg-mann/dentists-in-durango-co/Request_an_Appointment.html 404 1 0 404 : Error
http://durangocodentists.com/videos/repairing-teeth/pid%3A4078865 404 1 0 404 : Error
http://durangocodentists.com/videos/teeth-whitening/pid%3A4078865 404 1 0 404 : Error
http://durangocodentists.com/videos/veneers/pid%3A4078865 | 404 | 1 | 0 |
-
Thank you, Phil! Makes sense now!
-
Hi Sheryl,
If those URLs are returning a 404 Error, then you don't need to delete them -- they're already gone :).
The 404 error is simply a response code which says the page could not be found. The likely reason for this is exactly what you said in your question: since you renamed your URLs, you basically deleted the old URL and replaced it with a new one.
In general, there's nothing that you NEED to do, but here are a few suggestions:
-
If you link to any of those 404 URLs on your site anywhere, then be sure to change those links to point to the correct, new URLs.
-
Were any of these old URLs very popular? Did they get a lot of links and a lot of traffic? Are people still trying to go to them? If so, then you can 301 redirect those URLs to point to the new, correct URLs.
I hope that this helps. If you have any other questions then just let me know.
Phil
-
-
You can easily identify and redirect 404 pages in WordPress with this plugin - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/404-redirected/
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
-
How do I prevent duplicate page title errors from being generated by my multiple shop pages?
Our e-commerce shop has numerous pages within the main shop page. Users navigate through the shop via typical pagination. So while there may be 6 pages of products it's all still under the main shop page. Moz keeps flagging my shop pages as having duplicate titles (ie shop page 2). But they're all the same page. Users aren't loading unique pages each time they go to the next page of products and they aren't pages I can edit. I'm not sure how to prevent this issue from popping up on my reports.
Technical SEO | | NiteSkirm0 -
Sitemap error in Webmaster tools - 409 error (conflict)
Hey guys, I'm getting this weird error when I submit my sitemap to Google. It says I'm getting a 409 error in my post-sitemap.xml file (https://cleargear.com/post-sitemap.xml). But when I check it, it looks totally fine. I am using YoastSEO to generate the sitemap.xml file. Has anyone else experienced this? Is this a big deal? If so, Does anyone know how to fix? Thanks EwTswL4
Technical SEO | | Extima-Christian0 -
Duplicate content and 404 errors
I apologize in advance, but I am an SEO novice and my understanding of code is very limited. Moz has issued a lot (several hundred) of duplicate content and 404 error flags on the ecommerce site my company takes care of. For the duplicate content, some of the pages it says are duplicates don't even seem similar to me. additionally, a lot of them are static pages we embed images of size charts that we use as popups on item pages. it says these issues are high priority but how bad is this? Is this just an issue because if a page has similar content the engine spider won't know which one to index? also, what is the best way to handle these urls bringing back 404 errors? I should probably have a developer look at these issues but I wanted to ask the extremely knowledgeable Moz community before I do 🙂
Technical SEO | | AliMac260 -
If I want clean up my URLs and take the "www.site.com/page.html" and make it "www.site.com/page" do I need a redirect?
If I want clean up my URLs and take the "www.site.com/page.html" and make it "www.site.com/page" do I need a redirect? If this scenario requires a 301 redirect no matter what, I might as well update the URL to be a little more keyword rich for the page while I'm at it. However, since these pages are ranking well I'd rather not lose any authority in the process and keep the URL just stripped of the ".html" (if that's possible). Thanks for you help! [edited for formatting]
Technical SEO | | Booj0 -
Does adding subcategory pages to an commerce site limit the link juice to the product pages?
I have a client who has an online outdoor gear company. He mostly sells high end outdoor gear (like ski jackets, vests, boots, etc) at a deep discount. His store currently only resides on Ebay. So we're building him an online store from scratch. I'm trying to determine the best site architecture and wonder if we should include subcategory pages. My issue is that I think the subcategory pages might be good from a user experience, but it'll add an additional layer between the homepage and the product pages. The problem is that I think a lot of user's might be searching for the product name to see if they can find a better deal, and my client's site would be perfect for them. So I really want to rank well for the product pages, but I'm nervous that the subcategory pages will limit the link juice of the product pages. Home --> SubCategory --> Product List --> Product Detail Home --> Men's Ski Clothing --> Men's Ski Jack --> North Face Mt Everest Jacket Should I keep the SubCategory page "Men's Ski Clothing" if it helps usability? On a separate note, the SubCategory pages would have some head keyword terms, but I don't think that he could rank well for these terms anytime soon. However, they would be great pages / terms to rank for in the long term. Should this influence the decision?
Technical SEO | | Santaur0 -
Pageing page and seo meta tag questions
Hi if i am using paging in my website there is lots of product in my website now in paging total paging is 1000 pages now what title tag i need to add for every paging page or is there any good way we can tell search engine all page or same ?
Technical SEO | | constructionhelpline0 -
404 Error from site - is this normal?
I have been trying to clean up any 404 errors. We keep getting the following: URL /include/vdimgck.php referring domain http://www.856d.c@m/plus/feedback.php rendered domain unclickable by adding the "@" since I do not know if it is safe. I just turned off the trackbacks and pings in the blog since I saw it was producing duplicate content and from what I read it is not worth keeping those with Wordpress. is vdimgck.php anything some here instantly recognizes ? It tops all our 404 errors, seems like a lot of requests. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Force70