Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • Case Studies
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • Case Studies

        Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Technical SEO
    4. 404 error - but I can't find any broken links on the referrer pages

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    404 error - but I can't find any broken links on the referrer pages

    Technical SEO
    4
    12
    3452
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • PooleyK
      PooleyK last edited by

      Hi,

      My crawl has diagnosed a client's site with eight 404 errors.

      In my CSV download of the crawl, I have checked the source code of the 'referrer' pages, but can't find where the link to the 404 error page is. Could there be another reason for getting 404 errors?

      Thanks for your help.

      Katharine.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • IainReloadMedia
        IainReloadMedia @IainReloadMedia last edited by

        Are you getting any crawl errors in Google Webmaster tools?

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • PooleyK
          PooleyK @KeriMorgret last edited by

          Thank you. I will do.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • KeriMorgret
            KeriMorgret last edited by

            Xenu looks good to me for that page as well. I'd do an-demand crawl for that page/site from http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/crawl-test and if it's still showing up, send an email to help@seomoz.org so we can look and see if there's an error in the crawl software.

            Thanks!

            PooleyK 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • PooleyK
              PooleyK @IainReloadMedia last edited by

              Thanks! At least I know I am not going blind! No, the CSV came from SEO Moz's report.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • IainReloadMedia
                IainReloadMedia @IainReloadMedia last edited by

                Hi Sarah,

                I wasn't able to find errors on that page. Just to confirm the CSV of the crawl, is that coming from Google Webmasters?

                Iain

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • PooleyK
                  PooleyK @IainReloadMedia last edited by

                  Hi Iain,

                  Thanks for your help. The site was recrawled on the weekend after attempted updates had been made and I downloaded a new CSV. The broken links are still showing and I still can't find where they are on the page?!

                  Screaming Frog has not shown up any errors however.

                  Not sure what else to do! Were you able to see any broken links in the example URLs I posted above?

                  Many thanks,

                  Katharine.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • IainReloadMedia
                    IainReloadMedia @PooleyK last edited by

                    When was the CSV download of the crawl taken? Have any changes been made to that page since?

                    Did the same 404 show up when you used Screaming Frog?

                    Thanks

                    Iain - Reload Media

                    PooleyK IainReloadMedia 4 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • PooleyK
                      PooleyK last edited by

                      I wondered if it would help if I got more specific.

                      For example, this 404 error link

                      http://www.soccer2000.com/store/X10498!ADI/CONDIVO%2B12%2B3/4%2BPANT

                      Is supposedly found on this page:

                      http://www.soccer2000.com/store/cat/APP/APPAREL

                      But I can't find it anywhere - any ideas why?

                      Thanks again.

                      IainReloadMedia 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • PooleyK
                        PooleyK @Gyorgy last edited by

                        Thanks! Fingers crossed this is what caused it.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • IainReloadMedia
                          IainReloadMedia last edited by

                          Hi Katherine,

                          Try using Screaming Frog SEO software to crawl you site. That should pick up if you have a incorrect internal links.

                          For external links pointing to none existent pages, try Majestic SEO. It has the largest amount of link data (Sorry Open Site Explorer, but you know it's true).

                          Hope that helps

                          Iain - Reload Media

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • Gyorgy
                            Gyorgy last edited by

                            The crawl runs once a week, so maybe the broken links have been corrected since the last report. Wait for the next report and check if they still appear.

                            PooleyK 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • 1 / 1
                            • First post
                              Last post

                            Got a burning SEO question?

                            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                            Start my free trial


                            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.

                            • See all categories

                            Related Questions

                            • DGAU

                              Can I use a 301 redirect to pass 'back link' juice to a different domain?

                              Hi, I have a backlink from a high DA/PA Government Website pointing to www.domainA.com which I own and can setup 301 redirects on if necessary. However my www.domainA.com is not used and has no active website (but has hosting available which can 301 redirect). www.domainA.com is also contextually irrelevant to the backlink. I want the Government Website link to go to www.domainB.com - which is both the relevant site and which also should be benefiting from from the seo juice from the backlink. So far I have had no luck to get the Government Website's administrators to change the URL on the link to point to www.domainB.com. Q1: If i use a 301 redirect on www.domainA.com to redirect to www.domainB.com will most of the backlink's SEO juice still be passed on to www.domainB.com? Q2: If the answer to the above is yes -  would there be benefit to taking this a step further and redirect www.domainA.com to a deeper directory on www.domianB.com which is even more relevant?
                              ie. redirect www.domainA.com to www.domainB.com/categoryB - passing the link juice deeper.

                              Technical SEO | | DGAU
                              0
                            • UnbounceVan

                              How can I stop a tracking link from being indexed while still passing link equity?

                              I have a marketing campaign landing page and it uses a tracking URL to track clicks. The tracking links look something like this: http://this-is-the-origin-url.com/clkn/http/destination-url.com/ The problem is that Google is indexing these links as pages in the SERPs. Of course when they get indexed and then clicked, they show a 400 error because the /clkn/ link doesn't represent an actual page with content on it. The tracking link is set up to instantly 301 redirect to http://destination-url.com. Right now my dev team has blocked these links from crawlers by adding   Disallow: /clkn/   in the robots.txt file, however, this blocks the flow of link equity to the destination page. How can I stop these links from being indexed without blocking the flow of link equity to the destination URL?

                              Technical SEO | | UnbounceVan
                              0
                            • agencepicnic

                              Finding websites that don't have meta descriptions

                              Hi everyone, as a way to find new business leads I thought about targeting websites that have poor meta descriptions or where they are simply missing. A quick look at SERPs shows this is still a major issue for many businesses. Is there any way I can quickly find pages for which meta description is lacking? Thank you! Best regards, Florian

                              Technical SEO | | agencepicnic
                              0
                            • inlinear

                              Correct linking to the /index of a site and subfolders: what's the best practice? link to: domain.com/ or domain.com/index.html ?

                              Dear all, starting with my .htaccess file: RewriteEngine On
                              RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.inlinear.com$ [NC]
                              RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://inlinear.com/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^./index.html 
                              RewriteRule ^(.)index.html$ http://inlinear.com/ [R=301,L] 1. I redirect all URL-requests with www. to the non www-version...
                              2. all requests with "index.html" will be redirected to "domain.com/" My questions are: A) When linking from a page to my frontpage (home) the best practice is?: "http://domain.com/" the best and NOT: "http://domain.com/index.php" B) When linking to the index of a subfolder "http://domain.com/products/index.php" I should link also to: "http://domain.com/products/" and not put also the index.php..., right? C) When I define the canonical ULR, should I also define it just: "http://domain.com/products/" or in this case I should link to the definite file: "http://domain.com/products**/index.php**" Is A) B) the best practice? and C) ? Thanks for all replies! 🙂
                              Holger

                              Technical SEO | | inlinear
                              0
                            • JohnHuynh

                              Miss meta description on 404 page

                              Hi, My 404 page did not have meta description. Is it an error? Because I run report and seomoz said that a problem. Thanks!

                              Technical SEO | | JohnHuynh
                              0
                            • janc

                              Footer Links with same anchor text on all pages

                              We have different websites targeted at the different services our company provides. (e.g. For our document storage services, we have www.ukdocumentstorage.com. For document management, we have www.document-management-solutions.co.uk). If we take the storage site for example, every single page has a link in the footer to our document management site, with the anchor text 'Cleardata Document Management' SEOMoz is telling me that these are seen as external links (as they are on a different URL's), and I'm just clarifying that would this be a major possible factor in the website not ranking highly? How should I rectify this issue?

                              Technical SEO | | janc
                              0
                            • AZWebWorks

                              Google's "cache:" operator is returning a 404 error.

                              I'm doing the "cache:" operator on one of my sites and Google is returning a 404 error. I've swapped out the domain with another and it works fine. Has anyone seen this before? I'm wondering if G is crawling the site now? Thx!

                              Technical SEO | | AZWebWorks
                              0
                            • wparlaman

                              What's the difference between a category page and a content page

                              Hello, Little confused on this matter. From a website architectural and content stand point, what is the difference between a category page and a content page? So lets say I was going to build a website around tea. My home page would be about tea. My category pages would be: White Tea, Black Tea, Oolong Team and British Tea correct? (  I Would write content for each of these topics on their respective category pages correct?) Then suppose I wrote articles on organic white tea, white tea recipes, how to brew white team etc...( Are these content pages?) Do I think link FROM my category page ( White Tea) to my ( Content pages ie; Organic White Tea, white tea receipes etc) or do I link from my content page to my category page? I hope this makes sense. Thanks, Bill

                              Technical SEO | | wparlaman
                              0

                            Get started with Moz Pro!

                            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                            Start my free trial
                            Products
                            • Moz Pro
                            • Moz Local
                            • Moz API
                            • Moz Data
                            • STAT
                            • Product Updates
                            Moz Solutions
                            • SMB Solutions
                            • Agency Solutions
                            • Enterprise Solutions
                            Free SEO Tools
                            • Domain Authority Checker
                            • Link Explorer
                            • Keyword Explorer
                            • Competitive Research
                            • Brand Authority Checker
                            • Local Citation Checker
                            • MozBar Extension
                            • MozCast
                            Resources
                            • Blog
                            • SEO Learning Center
                            • Help Hub
                            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                            • How-to Guides
                            • Moz Academy
                            • API Docs
                            About Moz
                            • About
                            • Team
                            • Careers
                            • Contact
                            Why Moz
                            • Case Studies
                            • Testimonials
                            Get Involved
                            • Become an Affiliate
                            • MozCon
                            • Webinars
                            • Practical Marketer Series
                            • MozPod
                            Connect with us

                            Contact the Help team

                            Join our newsletter
                            Moz logo
                            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                            • Accessibility
                            • Terms of Use
                            • Privacy

                            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.