Why the sudden increase in soft 404s?
-
I haven't made any changes to my site but in a week I am showing 30-40 soft 404s in Webmaster Tools. This just started happening in the last 2 weeks. When I click to go to the pages they are fine, and even fetch and render works fine on the pages.
-
They have stopped, with no changes to the site. I have no idea why. Thank you for the offer though.
-
Hi EcommerceSite!
Would love to help you figure this out - please PM the URL. Thanks!
-
It seems to have stopped with no changes to the site. I have no idea why.
-
Hi EcommerceSite,
Can't see an answer to your question so far, are you still having issues?
If you want to send me a pm with your url then I'll have a look at this for you.
Tom
-
I can send it in a message.
-
Hi EcommerceSite!
It really sounds like folks will need to check out your site, or at least have a lot more information, in order to give much more advice. Is that something you can share?
-
Loading times have stayed really stable.
There are no 404 errors in either tool.
Using the fetch as Googlebot tool the pages all work fine.
It doesn't make any sense.
-
Hi,
This can occur if Google's crawlers for some reason is not able to reach some of your pages. It could be related to some network issues, or temporary server issues. A few things to look at:
- Do you see any increased loading times for your pages?
- When looking at the page with firebug or chrome's inspector tools - do you see any 404 errors returned
- What result do you get if using the Fetch as Googlebot tool?
Hope this helps
Best regards,Anders
-
It'd be great if you can share what your site is so people can check it out and see if they can figure out what's going on. Thanks!
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
-
Will Reduced Bounce Rate, Increased Pages/Session, Increased Session Duration-RESULT IN BETTER RANKING?
Our relaunched website has a much lower bounce rate (66% before, now 58%) increased pages per session (1.89 before, now 3.47) and increased session duration (1:33 before, now 3:47). The relaunch was December 20th. Should these improvements result in an improvement in Google rank? How about in MOZ authority? We have not significantly changed the content of the site but the UX has been greatly improved. Thanks, Alan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan11 -
Mystery URLs showing in Analytics - All 404s
Hi Guys So we have a whole load of mystery urls showing in analytics .The urls are completely not relevant and have somehow been created However - when you click on the URLs - they all go to 404 pages - pages not found. The website is a travel website but is showing pages like /overcome-fatigue-during-mesothelioma-treatment/ in analytics. Webmaster is not showing any of these pages - but analytics is showing traffic for them??? My initial thought was that it was a spam URL injection - but they are not pages. They don't exist Our database is fine, WP admin seems fine - none of these supposed pages have been created on WP - so why are they showing on analytics as having driven traffic??? None of the urls are indexed on Google. Its a mystery!!!! Can anyone help? Has anyone seen this before????
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CayenneRed890 -
Sudden downfall of the results, intelligents can easily find the solution
Dear, previously my site got top rank results (first place in first page) for 1. "Vastu" (Landing page: https://www.subhavaastu.com/vastu.html) 2. "Vaastu" (Landing page: https://www.subhavaastu.com/vaastu.html) 3. "Vastu shastra" (Landing page: https://www.subhavaastu.com/about-vastu-shastra.html). 4. "Vastu Consultant", (Landing page: https://www.subhavaastu.com) Previously say about 4/5 years back, I got only 1/2 place in google for the above keywords. Now my site is not visible for the said above keywords. But for these below keywords I am getting very good rankings 5. "Vasthu" (Landing page: https://www.subhavaastu.com/vasthu.html) (3 rd position in first page) 6. "Vaasthu" (Landing page: https://www.subhavaastu.com/vaasthu.html) (2nd position in first page) I got good improvements with my attemps. Require to get again first page first rank for these keywords. Vastu, Vaastu, Vastu shastra, vastu consultant. Anybody can help please.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SubhaVaastu0 -
How to Increase PR? I am using joomla platform for my Website.
Hi There, i have question how to increase the Pagerank? My website health according ahrefs is 90%. but still no pagerank. please help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GarySahota0 -
301s Creating Soft 404s in GWT
Hi, We re-did a section of a site and got rid of hundreds of pages of no longer relevant content. We 301'd the urls to the category homepage. Now, GWT calls these soft 404s. a) Should we have done something differently instead of 301ing? b) Are these hundreds of soft 404 errors a big problem or threat to how Google sees us for SEO? c) Should we correct this in some way? Thanks... Darcy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Looking to increase the quality of our backlinks with a press release: Business wire or Prweb?
Hello all! We are looking to increase the quality of backlinks to our new website www.unitedfitnessmarketing.com and wondering which service would be more beneficial. Care to share any preferences or advice? We have been live for about 3 1/2 months now. We are in a tough niche to find related backlinking websites. We are in the health club marketing consulting field. I just paid for a business.com listing but was thinking a quality press release would give me more juice. My competitors have used free press release services so I'm thinking I could easily one-up them and gain some ground in the rankings. Leaning more towards business wire b/c it's a berkshire hathaway company but would like more input. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | unitedfitness0 -
What would cause a sudden rise and drop in keyword ranking?
I made one change to my site - creating a good, relevant, title. A few days later, ranking for a keyword jumped pretty well - which is what I was expecting. We were ranked 9th. Then the next ranking report showed a 20 place decline. What would cause this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ocularis0 -
How Fast Is Too Fast to Increase Page Volume of Your Site
I am working on a project that is basically a site to list apartment for rent (similar to apartments.com or rent.com). We want to add a bunch of amenity pages, price pages, etc. Basically increasing the page count on the site and helping users be able to have more pages relevant to their searches and long tail phrases. So an example page would be Denver apartments with a pool would be one page and Seattle apartments under 900 would be another page etc. By doing this we will take the site from about 14,000 pages or so to over 2 million by the time we add a list of amenities to every city in the US. My question is should I worry about time release on them? Meaning do you think we would get penalized for launching that many pages overnight or over the course of a week? How fast is too fast to increase the content on your site? The site about a year old and we are not trying to scam anything just looking to site functionality and page volume. Any advice?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ioV0