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.
Why are Seemingly Randomly Generated URLs Appearing as Errors in Google Webmaster Tools?
-
I've been confused by some URLs that are showing up as errors in our GWT account. They seem to just be randomly generated alphanumeric strings that Google is reporting as 404 errors. The pages do 404 because nothing ever existed there or was linked to. Here are some examples that are just off of our root domain:
/JEzjLs2wBR0D6wILPy0RCkM/WFRnUK9JrDyRoVCnR8=
/MevaBpcKoXnbHJpoTI5P42QPmQpjEPBlYffwY8Mc5I=
/YAKM15iU846X/ymikGEPsdq 26PUoIYSwfb8 FBh34=
I haven't been able to track down these character strings in any internet index or anywhere in our source code so I have no idea why Google is reporting them.
We've been pretty vigilant lately about duplicate content and thin content issues and my concern is that there are an unspecified number of urls like this that Google thinks exist but don't really.
Has anyone else seen GWT reporting errors like this for their site? Does anyone have any clue why Google would report them as errors?
-
Glad to hear you located the root cause of the issue.
-
Update: I think I found the source of the errors. We have a form submission box on every page of our site and there are random alphanumeric strings that are unique to every page that look like these urls that Google is reporting as errors. Maybe Google is trying to use our form submission tool.
It's still really odd that Google would think they are urls and report them as errors since they appear in an tag not an <a> tag</a>
<a>```
<input id="authenticity_token" name="authenticity_token" type="hidden" value="ElCkBCszxMddaqVyVIx+flkzRlM9xb7mHb3cFISlJvY=" /> -
The next step would be to check Google WMT > Diagnostics > Crawl errors > Not Found tab
Click the "Linked from Detected" text. That will show the source of the link.
-
That's not the case. We have an in house content system and no shopping cart. These urls return a 404 error and always have because they've never existed.
No crawlers have returned urls that look like this either. I can't get these urls to show up in Google's index either.
-
Hi Jimmy,
My bet is you are using a CMS or Shopping Cart on your site. The software is generating these seemingly random URLs, and the Google crawler is seeing them.
Crawlers don't move through your site the way people do. If you take your home page and right-click, then choose View Page Source, you will find many URLs. The crawler will then follow each and every URL throughout your site. The URLs you are seeing could be generated on any given page.
To track the issue, use the SEOmoz crawler on your site, then analyze the results. When you find these types of URLs, take note of the page they are located on.
Alternatively, you can contact your CMS or shopping cart's software developer and inquire about the URLs. If these URLs show a folder path before the random characters, that information can help track down which pages or software is generating these pages.
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
-
"index.htm" for all url's in google analytics
I don't have this issue with other wordpress websites, only this one website, and I don't know what's causing the issue: Google Analytics is adding an "index.htm" to every single page on the website. So it is tracking the pages, I see no errors - is it tracking the right page? When I click on the page link in a report, I naturally go to a "404 page not found" since the website address isn't "www.example.com/rewards/index.htm" - but instead the actual address would be:
Reporting & Analytics | | cceebar
"www.example.com/rewards/". I have navigated to View Settings in GA to insure "default page" is empty. Although adding anything else to this field does not effect the page url in analytics reports either. Could it be htaccess file - or a plugin effecting the htaccess file?_Cindy0 -
% Change - Google analytics - how to calculate?
Hi All,
Reporting & Analytics | | JohnPalmer
I have two dates with two different numbers I want to calculate the "% Change" like google analytics, The numbers of June 2015 - 127,931 sessions
The numbers of June 2014 - 90914 sessions please tell me what is the %Change. Best. J0 -
Referral Traffic from Google
Hello, I have a question about my company's new website. I've worked in SEO and studied Google Analytics results for a few years now but have never really come across something like this. I started in this position in January of this year and when I started breaking down the traffic sources in Google Analytics, I noticed most of the traffic was coming from Google.com as a referral source. I had never seen Google.com as a referral source before so I looked into options for what it could be. It was not a paid ad and our organic traffic was coming through in Analytics, Before I could get any further, our new website was launched (we switched CRM's to WordPress) and the referral traffic from google went from 2,966 in January of 2015 to 22 in February 2015. for more comparison, in February of 2014, the referral traffic from Google was 2,496. I expected a drop when we switched CRM's but we correctly re-directed all pages and created a new sitemap and our organic traffic is up since the switch (not enough to cover drop in referral). I thought at first this had to do with our Google sellers account being de-activated when we made the switch, but I quickly fixed this over a month ago and no change. I'm wondering if anyone has ever seen Google.com come through as a referral source in Google Analytics and if they we're able to figure out what it actually was. This would be a great help! Thank you, Alex
Reporting & Analytics | | RASEO1 -
Google Analytics Real Time Not Working! :(
Hello Everyone, Today, the real time feature in my google analytics stopped working. I am able to see that traffic is visiting my site, but not in real time. The real time count is usually at 0. But, there are some instances where real time will come back online, but there will be only 1 unique visitor. At any given time, our website usually has 20 visitors or so..Has anyone encountered this issue? Where should i start looking for fixes? What are the possible problems? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | KarlMarxTheBear0 -
Link Research Tools
Is anyone else here a user of Link Research Tools? I recently completed a Link Detox for my sites. However, it is saying that links from high quality press release sites are deadly and should be removed. They are also saying the same about the links from the Yellow Pages. Obviously I know these tools are automated, but does anyone know why they are showing these links as 'deadly' and should be removed? I have tried contacting LRT about this issue but am yet to receive a reply.
Reporting & Analytics | | AAttias0 -
Google Analytics Organic Search Keywords Suddenly Displaying FulL Urls
In my Google Analytics, the top keywords for Organic Search are suddenyl displaying full URLs. For example, now the third and fourth keywords are http://www.domain.com/highly-specific-URL. These have all started recently around the same day, July 12th. I've checked back, and we've made no internal changes to the site around that time that could affect this. Any thoughts on this? Thanks! P.S. It might be related to rich snippets, but I cannot tell at this point.
Reporting & Analytics | | 10SL0 -
500 errors and impact on google rankings
Since the launch of our newly designed website about 6 months ago, we are experiencing a high number of 500 server errors (>2000). Attempts to resolve these errors have been unsuccessful to date. We have just started to notice a consistent and sustained drop in rankings despite our hard sought efforts to correct. Two questions... can very high levels of 500 errors adversely effect our google rankings? And, if this is the case, what type of specialist (what are they called) has expertise to investigate and fix this issue. I should also mention that the sitemap also goes down on a regular basis, which some have stated is due to the size of the site (>500 pages). Don't know if they're part of the same problem? Thanks.
Reporting & Analytics | | ahw0 -
How do you set www vs non-www in Bing Webmaster Tools?
A site of mine is showing as example.com instead of www.example.com in Bing and Yahoo. I know where to set the preferred domain to www in Google Webmaster Tools, but I can't seem to find that function in Bing Webmaster Tools. Can someone please point me in the right direction?
Reporting & Analytics | | DentalPlanSEO0