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????
-
Hi Kristina
Problem fixed - the websites analytics was suffering from Ghost Spam URLs.
A new one for me!
Best
Duncan
-
Very weird! Have you looked at your log files to find the IP requesting those URLs?
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 treat URLs with bookmarks when migrating a site?
I'm migrating an old website into a new one, and have several pages that have bookmarks on them. Do I need to redirect those? or how should they be treated? For example, both https://www.tnscanada.ca/our-expertise.html and https://www.tnscanada.ca/our-expertise.html#auto resolve .
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NatalieB_Kantar0 -
Www. or naked url?
Hi everyone, I am about to start a new WordPress site and debating whether to use www or naked URL for the URL structure. Using naked URL makes sense from a branding and minimalistic perspective but I am reading that using naked URL might have some technical deficiencies. Specifically, cookie issues and DNS can't be cname. Are these technical deficiencies still valid when using naked url? Would appreciate any feedback on this! Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nsereke1 -
Removing Parameterized URLs from Google Index
We have duplicate eCommerce websites, and we are in the process of implementing cross-domain canonicals. (We can't 301 - both sites are major brands). So far, this is working well - rankings are improving dramatically in most cases. However, what we are seeing in some cases is that Google has indexed a parameterized page for the site being canonicaled (this is the site that is getting the canonical tag - the "from" page). When this happens, both sites are being ranked, and the parameterized page appears to be blocking the canonical. The question is, how do I remove canonicaled pages from Google's index? If Google doesn't crawl the page in question, it never sees the canonical tag, and we still have duplicate content. Example: A. www.domain2.com/productname.cfm%3FclickSource%3DXSELL_PR is ranked at #35, and B. www.domain1.com/productname.cfm is ranked at #12. (yes, I know that upper case is bad. We fixed that too.) Page A has the canonical tag, but page B's rank didn't improve. I know that there are no guarantees that it will improve, but I am seeing a pattern. Page A appears to be preventing Google from passing link juice via canonical. If Google doesn't crawl Page A, it can't see the rel=canonical tag. We likely have thousands of pages like this. Any ideas? Does it make sense to block the "clicksource" parameter in GWT? That kind of scares me.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AMHC0 -
URL Parameter & crawl stats
Hey Guys,I recently used the URL parameter tool in WBT to mark different urls that offers the same content.I have the parameter "?source=site1" , "?source=site2", etc...It looks like this: www.example.com/article/12?source=site1The "source parameter" are feeds that we provide to partner sites and this way we can track the referral site with our internal analytics platform.Although, pages like:www.example.com/article/12?source=site1 have canonical to the original page www.example.com/article/12, Google indexed both of the URLs
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mr.bfz
www.example.com/article/12?source=site1andwww.example.com/article/12Last week I used the URL parameter tool to mark "source" parameter "No, this parameter doesnt effect page content (track usage)" and today I see a 40% decrease in my crawl stats.In one hand, It makes sense that now google is not crawling the repeated urls with different sources but in the other hand I thought that efficient crawlability would increase my crawl stats.In additional, google is still indexing same pages with different source parameters.I would like to know if someone have experienced something similar and by increasing crawl efficiency I should expect my crawl stats to go up or down?I really appreciate all the help!Thanks!0 -
Url structure of a blog
We are trying to work out what the best structure for our blog is as we want each page to rank as highly as possible, we were looking at a flat structure similar to http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/ where every posts is after the blog/ but not in category's although the viewers can look in different category's from the top buttons on the page- photoshop - icons etc or we where going to go for the structured way- blog/photoshop/blog-post.html the only problem is that we will end up 4 deep at least with this and at least 80 characters in the url. any help would be appreciated. Thanks Shaun
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
Canonical url question
i just search seomoz tooll it say duplicate content for www.mysite.com and www.mysite.com/index.php should i use canonical url for this ? is yes then is this right ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | constructionhelpline0 -
URL for offline purposes
Hi there, We are going to be promoting one of our products offline, however I do not want to use the original URL for this product page as it's long for the user to type in, so I thought it would be best practice in using a URL that would be short, easier for the consumer to remember. My plan: Replicate the product page and put it on this new short URL, however this would mean I have a duplicate content issue, would It be best practice to use a canonical on the new short URL pointing to the original URL? or use a 301? Thanks for any help
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul780 -
What Is The Preferred Url Structure For Se’s?
Here is my issue, my domain is abcdomian.com and I’m trying to rank the site for the keyword “example”. All of my content is under “abcdomain.com/folder/example/” and building content off of “abcdomain.com/example” is not an option. So I’m thinking about moving the content to “abcdomain.com/online-example/” and 301ing the old pages . Of the two paths below, which will have a greater impact on my rankings for the term “example”? Current: abcdomain.com/folder/example/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | samp582
Proposed: abcdomain.com/online-example/ Thoughts?0