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.
304 "If Modified Header" Triggers Error in Google Ads?
-
We have a client who is launch some Google Ads campaigns, and they recently asked us to fix 304 "Errors" on their website as per this feedback:
"When we inspected the website we came across a number of 304 status errors. In order to get the ads running, we will need all of the website domain status codes converted to 200. “
Of course, all of their website pages return a 200 Status, it's just the HTTP headers that additionally clarify with a 304 Response (not an error).
Has anyone else ever run into this issue with Google Ads? IMHO it makes no sense to remove this functionality. Google has even recommended in the past to use this it:
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2008/11/date-with-googlebot-part-ii-http-status.html
Thanks for any tips or feedback!
-
So - we pushed back a bit because we seriously couldn't fathom why we'd need to remove all of the 304 functionality from the website due to a directive from the Google Ads team.
Turns out, our gut instinct was right. The client's PPC agency ended up giving the Google Ads team a call, and then they learned that there was actually a 404 error happening (face palm) for one page. Not a 304.
Leaving this post here for good measure in case this ever happens to anyone else. Watch out for typos!
-
This means that Google believe there is an error with the landing pages which you have entered for your ads. 9 times out of 10, this comes down to someone putting the wrong URL into the Google Ads back-end and then having issues. This is especially the case for 3XX errors which usually indicate that redirects are at play. In your case, the story seems to be a bit different
Google is telling you that when they visit your landing URLs for your ads, instead of the ad connecting straight to the page, Google gets redirected:
"The HTTP
**304 Not Modified**
client redirection response code indicates that there is no need to retransmit the requested resources. It is an implicit redirection to a cached resource."So basically, Google cannot load your landing page because they are being redirected to a cache of the landing page instead of the live URL. This is unlikely to be down to someone entering the URL incorrectly in Google Ads (as that would be more likely to spawn a 301, 302 or 307). If you keep serving Google a cached version of your landing page, they can't know what's underneath of that redirect. As such, they can't trust the contents of the web-page
Some unscrupulous marketers, might use a 304 to get Google to evaluate a fake landing page, then send actual users to a completely different landing page (other than the one which Google evaluated). My guess is, this is a vulnerability which Google are unwilling to tolerate on their ads platform
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
-
Unsolved Google Ads Subdomain in sitelinks & Composition Change for Strategy Status
I have a basic query but could not find a definite answer on the internet. I am currently running a campaign for the main website of a big education brand and they also have a secondary learning website on subdomain, and I want to add sitelinks of subdomain to the campaign, but I am not sure whether it is allowed or not. The brand I am running ads for is https://www.rauias.com/ and the secondary website is https://compass.rauias.com/ branded slightly different in a subdomain, so should I add the sitelinks of Compass to the main campaign? Also one more silly question My Max Conversion search campaign gave me this status today. "Learning (composition change): Campaigns have been added to or removed from the bid strategy. Google Ads is now adjusting to optimize bids. 5 days left for learning" What does this mean exactly? And Why does it reenter the learning phase whenever I make a small change?
Paid Search Marketing | | rauoff0 -
Unsolved How should I update the grouping of keywords in a google ads account
hi, I have a google adwords account running for a while in a fairly competitive market in a major city so there is only one geo location with many suburbs or council areas as popular searched. I have keywords that are 2-4 words long and very similar. I have had one keyword in its own campaign, several in one campaign and a location campaign. The location campaign has several adgroups for specific suburbs. My question is that the most popular search terms are similar but in different campaigns and I am wondering if this is not the best way. for example I have these keywords in separate campaigns as exact match and phrase match
Paid Search Marketing | | salliWW
rubbish removal
rubbish removal near me
rubbish removal Washington But the way google uses exact match seems to be changing and I am concerned these would be best in one adgroup. Also these keywords trigger similar phrases, for example, waste removal. Is it best to put them in one campaign with one ad group or one campaign with separate adgroups, or leave as is. As competition has increased I need to bid for top of page now and need to keep budget rises as little as possible..0 -
Top of funnel google ads campaign not hardly converting, why?
Hi, I really hope someone can help me with this. I'm running two search ad campaigns and a google shopping campaign in google ads. The search campaigns are targeting top-of-funnel keywords as the business doesn't have universally known collections which everyone would search for so they are just unique to my business. So the campaigns are driving traffic but really converting whereas google shopping is converting because searchers are looking for particular products so they're lower down the funnel closer to aking a purchase decision. I feel I've optimised the campaign well and for the most part, most keywords have 7/10 quality score. The landing page seems fine. However, our offering wasn't as strong as competitors so we've offered a discount the same as them to compete. Since I started google ads we have nearly doubled our monthly revenue and the product types targeted in campaigns have increased in quantity sold so it seems it's having an effect but the campaigns aren't showing a good performance. Does anyone have any suggestions or input that could help me? I looked at first interaction attribution model and even there it's not performing well which makes this even more difficult to resolve. I'm thinking I should enable USER id feature in Google analytics so i can track signed in users across devices which may then help attribute sales to paid search channel as I saw in search console that the keyword that generates the most traffic to the site is our brand name and we're not a well-known brand so makes me think they may be starting their buyer's journey on a work computer on their mobile and finishing on their computer at home as an example. However, I don't believe this will be the main cause or solution as I would only have data for signed in users which still won't give me the full picture. Also if the campaign is optimised effectively but conversions are minimal could not having many conversions affect quality score? If someone can help or provide me with a different perspective it would be much appreciated. Please let me know if I need to clarify or explain further. I hope I've made myself clear. Thanks, T
Paid Search Marketing | | TZ19820 -
Special Characters in Negative Keywords in Ads
Howdy, fellow mozzers, I came across this weird suggestion in my Bing account (screenshot link: https://dmitrii-regexseo.tinytake.com/tt/NDY3OTc5NF8xNDgyMzY4OA) It almost that the dollar sign in the negative keyword is acting like a wildcard character, or being disregarded completely. I did some tests, it seems that in Google Ads that is not happening. Does anyone have an idea if this is normal behavior? I have never seen this before.
Paid Search Marketing | | DmitriiK0 -
Does having redirects in a Adwords text ad destination URL hurt quality scores?
I recently noticed that one of my clients had several redirects in their Adwords text ad destination URLs. I updated the destination URLS to land on the final location (thereby losing all the text ad history). However I'm wondering if this could have any impact on the text ad quality scores (none of them were disapproved).
Paid Search Marketing | | RosemaryB0 -
Google Shopping Feed being blocked by robots.txt
I had created a manual Google Shopping Feed that was working fine, and then someone well meaning put a block in my robots.txt file so Google couldn't read the images folder. because of this, Google now won't accept my feed. I changed the robots.txt file to allow them to read the images again, but it's been 3 days now and I'm still getting the error saying my products are disallowed because the robots.txt file won't let them scan for images. Does anyone know how long it will take for Google to see it again?
Paid Search Marketing | | sparrowdog0 -
Google Analytics and WorldPay - Tracking Sales/Conversions
Hi there, I recently remember reading somewhere that tracking code could be used to monitor sales/conversions of eCommerce payments that went through WorldPay. I've been looking around the web for news stories, forums, discussions, but all seem to be from 2007 - 2011; was just wondering if anyone knew any up-to-date info they could point me towards? Thanks
Paid Search Marketing | | bricktech0 -
Can I dynamically add city name to my PPC ad text and URL based on the user's search?
I have looked into DKI (Dynamic Keyword Insertion), but have not found a solution and thought that some excellent Mozzer might be able to help. Here is the idea: We have landing pages for hundreds of cities. The local content on each of these cities changes page to page, however the keywords that we are going after are the same. So, I am trying to create a dynamic ad group that looks something like this: Headline: {City Name} {Keyword} Description: We cover {City Name} {Keyword}, get more info now! URL: http://www.website.com/{City Name} Please let me know if you can assist with this, B
Paid Search Marketing | | Reis_Inc.0