Weird Cigarette URLs showing up in Google Webmaster Tools
-
Hi there,
I'm noticing a bunch of URLs showing up in my google webmaster tools that are all cigarette related (they are appearing as 404s in the crawl error report). They are throwing 404 errors which is why they are listed here...
Anyone have any idea of what this could be? I recently switched from Wordpress to Shopify and these weird URLs just started appearing on my webmaster tools in the last week. Kinda bizarre / a little alarming!
Thanks,
Bianca -
Awesome! Thank you so much for your help. You rock!
-
I would actually just try to mark it as fixed. 404's are not a big deal nowadays. It's just troublesome sometimes because WMT keeps bugging you about it, especially when you have links pointing to those pages.
-
Actually - one quick question. Should I do anything in webmaster tools - mark them as fixed? Or remove the links manually? Or should I just leave the crawl errors there since they are 404s?
-
This I can do! Thank you for your help.
-
Most likely a breach to your wordpress. If it's an old, outdated version, had vulnerable plugins or the server security was brute forced.
http://web.archive.org/web//http://www.batesmillstore.com/
filter with Buy or Cigar
You'll see that it has been there for a while.
Secure your website, server. Check your backlinks for cigarette links and don't worry about those 404's too much.
-
Maybe Ken? Another company had built and hosted the site for the company (my first project coming on board a few months ago was a new website that we'd manage in-house).
So, the odd thing based on what you were saying is that the links are being show to be coming from was: http://batesmillstore.com/shop/cable-weave-throw (which had been returning a 404 before but is not properly mapped to the right product on the new website).
Thoughts?
-
-
Hi,
Shot in the dark here but is is possible your old site was hacked and someone was hosting some pages there without your knowledge? You might not have seen them in WMT because they had little traffic then but now that they're 404s they are front and center.
FYI, my thought process is based on something similar that happened to me. About a year ago in my WMT I found 1000s of links from other sites. It turns out that people had made copies of the layout and graphics of my site and were putting in random text and putting them on in directories on other sites without the owners knowing. I wound up emailing dozens of site owners and had them removed - they had no idea they were there.
Just a thought.
Ken
-
could you post an example of the URLs you are seeing?
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
-
Metadata configured, but Google only shows URL with sitelinks. Something wrong with my code?
Hi guys! I have a metadata problem with my home page. If I look for the brand's keyword, the SERPs don´t show the metadata I configured, instead it shows the URL with sitelinks. If I use the "site:" command, it doesn't appear at all. This happens only on the home page, not the rest, which are roughly 700 pages. Those appear fine. I already have a meta title and meta description configured, which include the mentioned KW. It used to appear correctly before. GSC shows it indexed. Most audit tools (configured to crawl JS) detect the metadata. Moz's On Page tool doesn't. Could it be because of the JS configuration? Or am I missing something else? Here´s the meta description code:What do you think? I'd appreciate your input. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Reprise0 -
These days on Google results, it also shows the site map. I submitted my company's sitemap and it still does not show?What am I doing wrong?
Look at the image in the link. I want my company to look like the "pluralsight" website in Google. I want it to show the sitemap. I have already submitted the sitemap to Google few days back, what am I doing wrong? search?sourceid=chrome-psyapi2&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8&q=pluralsight&oq=pluralsight&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.11024j0j8
Technical SEO | | Deein0 -
Webmaster Tools Verification Problem
Hello, Somehow a website I'm working on has lost it's verification in Webmaster Tools. I have absolutely no clue why... The Google Analytics code is still working, the verification meta tag is in place, both are not working. I get an error message about Google not being able to connect to the server. I asked about any possible changes to server settings or stuff about that, but apparently nothing has changed there. The URL in question is Bivolino.com Does someone has any other ideas what I could be looking for. Thanks, Kind regards, Erik
Technical SEO | | buiserik0 -
GWT shows 38 external links from 8 domains to this PDF - But it shows no links and no authority in OSE
Hi All, I found one other discussion about the subject of PDFs and passing of PageRank here: http://moz.com/community/q/will-a-pdf-pass-pagerank But this thread didn't answer my question so am posting it here. This PDF: http://www.ccisolutions.com/jsp/pdf/YAM-EMX_SERIES.PDF is reported by GWT to have 38 links coming from 8 unique domains. I checked the domains and some of them are high-quality relevant sites. Here's the list: Domains and Number of Links
Technical SEO | | danatanseo
prodiscjockeyequipment.com 9
decaturilmetalbuildings.com 9
timberlinesteelbuildings.com 6
jaymixer.com 4
panelsteelbuilding.com 4
steelbuildingsguide.net 3
freedocumentsearch.com 2
freedocument.net 1 However, when I plug the URL for this PDF into OSE, it reports no links and a Page Authority if only "1". This is not a new page. This is a really old page. In addition to that, when I check the PageRank of this URL, the PageRank is "nil" - not even "0" - I'm currently working on adding links back to our main site from within our PDFs, but I'm not sure how worthwhile this is if the PDFs aren't being allocated any authority from the pages already linking to them. Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions? Thanks all!0 -
Google disavow tool ( how long does it take ? )
Hello, I disavowed some of my links about three months but still see them in my link profile, using OSE? How long does it take for Google to make them nofollow. Thanks
Technical SEO | | mezozcorp0 -
I was googling the word "best web hosting" and i notice the 1st and 3rd result were results with google plus. Does Google plus now play a role in improving ranking for the website?
I was googling the word "best web hosting" and i notice the 1st and 3rd result were results with google plus. Does Google plus now play a role in improving ranking for the website?I see a person's name next to the website too
Technical SEO | | mainguy0 -
When doing the ranking report I see my site showing up on google with out the www in front. So the report is not picking it up how do I fix that?
The ranking report is not picking up my site even though it's there. It would seem that the www. Is missing from the site on google so it's not registering in the report. How do i fix this?
Technical SEO | | ursalesguru0 -
Webmaster tools question
Hello i have a doubt. in my webmaster tools my sitemap is showing like this | /sitemap.xml | OK | Images | Nov 27, 2011 | 2,545 | 1,985 | i am not sure why the type is showing like Images i have one blog attached to the same webmaster account and it is showing correctly.. | /blog/sitemap.xml | OK | Sitemap | Nov 28, 2011 | 695 | 449 |
Technical SEO | | idreams0