4xx error - but no broken links founded by Xenu
-
In my SeoMoz crawl report I get multiple 4XX errors reported and they are all on the same type of links. www.zylom.com/nl/help/contact/9/ and differiate between the number at the end and the language.
But I i look in the source code we nice said:
<a class="<a class="attribute-value">bigbuttonblue</a>" style="<a class="attribute-value">float:right; margin-left:10px;</a>" href="[/nl/help/contact/9/?sid=9&e=login](view-source:http://www.zylom.com/nl/help/contact/9/?sid=9&e=login)" onfocus="<a class="attribute-value">blur()</a>" title="<a class="attribute-value">contact</a>"> contact a>
I already tested the little helpfull tool Xenu, but this also doesn't give any broken links for the url's which I found in the 4xx error report.
Could somebody give me a suggestion Why these 4xx errors keep coming? Could it be that the SeoMoz crawlers break the part ?sid=9&e=login' from the URL. Because if you want to enter the link, you first get a pop-up to fill in a login screen.
Thanks for you answers already
-
Hey Letty
If I request the full link in webbug I get a 200 okay response.
http://www.zylom.com/nl/help/contact/9/?sid=9&e=login
If I request the link less the variables in webbug I get the 404 as reported by the moz crawler.
http://www.zylom.com/nl/help/contact/9/
I would go into analytics, check to see which pages you have 404's for if it is just '/nl/help/contact/9/' then I don't think you have a problem.
I think nofollow would be a good solution and if we look at part of the nofollow page on google webmaster support:
"Before
nofollow
was used on individual links, preventing robots from following individual links on a page required a great deal of effort (for example, redirecting the link to a URL blocked in robots.txt). That's why thenofollow
attribute value of therel
attribute was created. This gives webmasters more granular control: instead of telling search engines and bots not to follow any links on the page, it lets you easily instruct robots not to crawl a specific link. For example:"Now, I am not 100% sure if the seomoz crawler respects nofollows (I would imagine it does) but certainly, if other robots are following this link and generating 404's (again, head into your analytics to get a handle on this) then it will certainly help there.
After all, this link is not for robots, it is not to be indexed, it is just a log in form for users so nofollowing that link seems to make perfect sense.
Hope that helps!
MarcusReferences:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=96569
-
Hi Marcus,
A link would be www.zylom.com/nl/help/contact/9/?sid=9&e=login
I think the pop-up screens which requested an login, is causing the 4xx error. because you can't enter without login. Think we should put a no-follow on these types of url's and that could solve the problem. What are your thoughts after seeing the link.
-
Hey Letty
It is somewhat hard to say without seeing a link but if Xenu says no broken links then it is likely as you suspect and the moz crawler is having a problem with those links.
Maybe try to confirm one way or the other in Google Analytics. An easy way (from memory) to do this is to search your pages so Content > Site Content > All pages for your custom 404 page (if you have one). Then, you can dig in and see if these are real errors or are just some kind of red herring (most likely).
Hope that helps!
Marcus
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
-
Website crawl error
Hi all, When I try to crawl a website, I got next error message: "java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Illegal cookie name" For the moment, I found next explanation: The errors indicate that one of the web servers within the same cookie domain as the server is setting a cookie for your domain with the name "path", as well as another cookie with the name "domain" Does anyone has experience with this problem, knows what it means and knows how to solve it? Thanks in advance! Jens
Technical SEO | | WeAreDigital_BE0 -
No PA and no DA and no back links.
Hello Friends, I am having some problem in my website. I hosted this before 4 months. I have done some seo work related to back links. But when I see in opensiteexplorer than it does not show any back links even It shows 1 DA and 1 PA but why?
Technical SEO | | docbeans0 -
Unnatural links from your site
Hi, 24 February got this penalty message in Google webmaster tool. Google detected a pattern of unnatural, artificial, deceptive, or manipulative outbound links on pages on this site. This may be the result of selling links that pass PageRank or participating in link schemes. Already removed all the link on the blog and sent reconsideration request to Google spam team. But request is rejected. Please help me on this or share link with me on same case. Thanks,
Technical SEO | | KLLC0 -
What if 404 Error not possible?
Hi Everyone, I get an 404 error in my page if the URL is simply wrong, but for some parameters, like if a page has been deleted, or has expired, I get an error page indicating that the ID is wrong, but no 404 error. It is for me very difficult to program a function in php that solve the problem and modify the .htaccess with the mod_rewrite. I ask the developer of the system to give a look, but I am not sure if I will get an answer soon. I can control the content of the deleted/expired page, but the URL will be very similar to those that are ok (actually the url could has been fine, but now expired). Thinking of solutions I can set the expired/deleted pages as noindex, would it help to avoid duplicated title/description/content problem? If an user goes to i.e., mywebsite.com/1-article/details.html I can set the head section to noindex if it has expired. Would it be good enough? Other question, is it possible anyhow to set the pages as 404 without having to do it directly in the .htacess, so avoiding the mod_rewrite problems that I am having? Some magical tag in the head section of the page? Many thanks in advance for your help, Best Regards, Daniel
Technical SEO | | te_c0 -
Site rebuild without HTML extension = broken links?
I have a client and his site is pure HTML. He made huge amount of link building with some hundreds of links point to example.com/target.HTML Now we decided to use WordPress with the same site structure. If we use the exact same URLs but without the HTML ending will it cause broken links? Is there any best practice for this kind of change? Many thanks for any idea!
Technical SEO | | seozoltan0 -
Google Links
I am assuming that the list presented by Google Webmaster tools (TRAFFIC | Links To Your Site) is the one that will actually be used by Google for indexing ? There seem to be quite a few links that there that should not be there. ie Assumed NOFOLLOW links. Am I working under an incorrect assumption that all links in webmaster tools are actually followed ?
Technical SEO | | blinkybill0 -
Track outbound links
I would like to track outbound links at http://bit.ly/yYHmbf 1. Shall i add the following code before at the above page What does 100 means in above code ? 2. Then use this for each outgoing link ``` [onClick="recordOutboundLink(this, 'Outbound Links', 'example.com');return false;">](http://www.example.com) ``` [](http://www.example.com) ```[``` http://www.example.com is the outbound link Am i right on both counts ? where should i look for report in GA ? ```](http://www.example.com)
Technical SEO | | seoug_20050 -
Add to Cart Link
We have shopping cart links (<a href's,="" not="" input="" buttons)="" that="" link="" to="" a="" url="" along="" the="" lines="" of="" cart="" add="" 123&return="/product/123. </p"></a> <a href's,="" not="" input="" buttons)="" that="" link="" to="" a="" url="" along="" the="" lines="" of="" cart="" add="" 123&return="/product/123. </p">The SEOMoz site crawls are flagging these as a massive number of 302 redirects and I also wonder what sort of effect this is having on linkjuice flowing around the site. </a> <a href's,="" not="" input="" buttons)="" that="" link="" to="" a="" url="" along="" the="" lines="" of="" cart="" add="" 123&return="/product/123. </p">I can see several possible solutions: Make the links nofollow Make the links input buttons Block /cart/add with robots.txt Make the links 301 instead of 302 Make the links javascript (probably worst care) All of these would result in an identical outcome for the UX, but are very different solutions. What would you suggest?</a>
Technical SEO | | Aspedia0