HTTP Errors in Webmaster Tools

[kylesuss]

We recently added a 301 redirect from our non-www domain to the www version. As a result, we now have tons of HTTP errors (403s to be exact) in Webmaster Tools. They're all from over a month ago, but they still show up. How can we fix this?

[kylesuss]

Hey Sha,

Sorry for the slow reply. Yes, I checked the URLs that were listed and I didn't actually receive a 403 error. I guess I figured there would be some room for lag time but these errors are over a month old so I thought that was strange.

[ShaMenz]

Hi Kyle,

Have you manually checked the URL's reported in Webmaster Tools to check whether they are actually returning a 403 for users? I have often seen errors that were temporary or have already been fixed still being reported in WMT for sometime afterwards.

If you have checked and the pages are working fine then the problem is most likely due to a lag in updates in WMT so you can ignore it and wait for it to go away.

If you have checked manually and find that there is in fact a 403 problem on the site, then you will need to investigate further. Since you are relating the sudden flood of 403's to the addition of the 301 redirect, the first thing I would do is check that the code for your 301 is correct.

Hope that helps,

Sha