What might make Bing.bot find a URL that looks like this on our site?
-
I have been doing something Richard Baxter recently suggested and reviewing our server logs.
I have found an oddity that hopefully some of you smart Mozzers can help me figure out.
Here is the line from the server log (there are many more like this):
157.55.32.166 - - [04/Mar/2013:08:00:59 -0800] "GET /StoreFront/category/www.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/category/shure-se-earphones HTTP/1.1" 200 94133 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; bingbot/2.0; +http://www.bing.com/bingbot.htm)" "-"
See how the www.ccisolutions.com appears after /StoreFront/category/ ? We used to see weird URLs reported in GWT that looked like this, but ever since we fixed our canonical tags to be absolute instead of relative URLs, they no longer appeared in our Webmaster Tools reports.
However, it seems there is still a problem. Where/how could Bingbot be seeing URLs configured this way? Could it be a server issue, or is it most likely a data problem?
Thanks in advance!
Dana
P.S. Could this be resulting from our massive use of relative URLs all over the site?
-
Hi Streamline,
I thought I would circle back and update everyone as to what I found. You were correct about mal-formed URLs being the culprit of this problem. We have many isolated incidences of URLs for internal links that are missing the "/" at the beginning of a relative URL. There are inconsistencies on the relative URLs all over the site. It's certainly an example of one of many problems that can be caused by using relative rather than absolute URLs.
Since we are in the process of completely re-doing the site and moving to a new platform, it's something we can definitely work to get right during the transition.
Thanks again to you, Daniel and Keri for jumping in with answers.
Dana
-
Thanks to you both Daniel and Streamline.
I believe the problem may have to do with our .htaccess file. I am obtaining a copy of it now.
-
Thanks Keri. That's very helpful. I will do that.
-
Hi Dana,
I agree with Streamline, there will be a hidden issue in you site that it attempting to connect to an under formed link (a URL missing 'http://'). Given there is a number of them in one day I will guess this is happening in a templated page.
Have a look at;
It renders as a page.
The best course of action would be resolve it at the source. If you can pinpoint when this issue is due to occur next, have your developer get each page to append it's URL into the log at the beginning of the page. Then you should be able to determine where the issue is occurring. I am hoping you well see a discernible pattern.
Worse case scenario, possibly a canonical will work, OR create a REGEX redirect to handle this URL pattern in htaccess...
Hope this helps,
Dan
-
Dana, you might also want to contact Bing at https://support.discoverbing.com/eform.aspx?productKey=bingwebmaster&ct=eformts&scrx=1. I sent a quick note on Twitter to Duane Forrester and that's the URL he provided.
-
Can you tell from which page Bing is trying to access these URLs? And it only happened on the 4th and not on any other day? Could it be an issue with the sitemap on that day?
I'm looking at your site now and the page http://www.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/category/www.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/category/shure-se-earphones is returning a 200 response code to me, not a 404 code. The key is to figure out how Bing discovered the URL in the first place...
-
While this is certainly a possibility, I'm not sure it's the cause of the problem. If this were the case, wouldn't it most likely cause a 404 error, instead of rendering the proper page (albeit with a very funky URL) and a 200 status code?
The other thing making me think it's not just a poorly constructed link on the site is that there are over 100 of these in the server log, from just one day.
Thoughts?
-
I'm willing to bet that on some page of your site, there is a link pointing to www.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/category/shure-se-earphones which is missing the "http://" at the beginning. So if Bing or a user tried to click on that link, they would be directed to /StoreFront/category/www.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/category/shure-se-earphones instead of the correct link.
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
-
URL Question: Is there any value for ecomm sites in having a reverse "breadcrumb" in the URL?
Wondering if there is any value for e-comm sites to feature a reverse breadcrumb like structure in the URL? For example: Example: https://www.grainger.com/category/anchor-bolts/anchors/fasteners/ecatalog/N-8j5?ssf=3&ssf=3 where we have a reverse categorization happening? with /level2-sub-cat/level1-sub-cat/category in the reverse order as to the actual location on the site. Category: Fasteners
Technical SEO | | ROI_DNA
Sub-Cat (level 1): Anchors
Sub-Cat (level 2): Anchor Bolts0 -
URL Structure for "Find A Professional" Page
I've read all the URL structure posts out there, but I'm really undecided and would love a second opinion. Currently, this is how the developer has our professionals directory working: 1. You search by inputting your Zip Code and selecting a category (such as Pool Companies) and we return all professionals within a X-mile radius of that ZIP. This is how the URL's are structured... 1. Main Page: /our-professionals 2. The URL looks like this after a search for "Deck Builders" in ZIP 19033: /our-professionals?zipcode=19033&HidSuppliers=&HiddenSpaces=&HidServices=&HidServices_all=[16]%2C&HidMetroareas=&srchbox= 3. When I click one of the businesses, URL looks like this: viewprofile.php?id=409 I know how to go about doing this, but I'm undecided on the best structure for the URL's. Maybe for results pages do this: find-professionals/deck-builders/philadelphia-pa-19033 And for individual pro's profiles do this: /deck-builders/philadelphia-pa-19033/Billys-Deck-Service Any input on how to best structure this so that we can have a good chance of showing in SERPs for "Deck Builders near New Jersey" and the such, would be much appreciated.
Technical SEO | | zDucketz0 -
Site Map Problems or Are They?
According to webmaster tools my Sitemap contains urls which are blocked by robots.txt Our site map is generically generated and encompasses all web pages, whether I have excluded them using the robots.txt file As far as I am aware this has never been an issue until recently. Is this hurting my rankings and how do I fix it? Secondly, webmaster tools says there is over 5,000 error/warnings on my site map. But site map is only 1,400 or so pages submitted. How do I see what is going on?
Technical SEO | | Professor0 -
Trying to get google to know my site is a magazine site is this wrong
Hi, i have put a line to describe what my site is at the top of my site and i want to know if this is wrong or not. We have dropped frok being number one in google for lifestyle magazine to now number seven. Before we had to redo our site we were number one and then we dropepd to around number four when we finished the site and now we are number seven and i need to try and get back up there. To help google know we are a lifestyle magazine i have put a line at the top of the site and i want to know if this looks out of place and if i should take it down. i need advice on how to get google to know we are a lifestyle magazine and get back in the top five of google my site is www.in2town.co.uk any help would be great
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Site maps, Is there any benefit?
I have a relatively simple and small site (60 pages). All of it is crawlable and there is nothing I want non follow. So, is there any real benefit to a sitemap since Google can get to all the site anyway? Do they give the site more credence or something because it's there? I guess as an aside, are there any favorite sites that will generate a site map? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Banknotes0 -
ECommerce Site, URL's, Canonical and Tracking Referral Traffic
I'm very, very new to eCommerce websites that employ many different URL's to track referral traffic. I have a client that has 18 different URL's that land on the Home Page in order to track traffic from different referral sources. For example: http://erasedisease.com/?ref=abot - Tracks traffic from an affiliate source http://erasedisease.com/?ref=FB01 - Tracks traffic from a FB Ad http://erasedisease.com/?ref=sas&SSAID=289169 - Tracks more affiliate traffic ...and the list goes on and on. My first question is do you think this could hinder our Google rankings? SEOMoz Crawl doesn't show any Duplicate Content Errors, so I guess that's good. I've just been reading a lot about Canonical Url's and eCommerce sites, but I'm not sure if this is a situation where I'd want to use some kind of canonical plugin for this Wordpress website or not. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much!!
Technical SEO | | Linwright0 -
Will training videos available on the "members only" section of a site contribute to the sites ranking?
Hello, I got asked a question recently as to whether training videos on the deeper pages of a website (that you can only access if you are a member and log in) will help with the sites ranking. On the SEOMoz software these deeper pages have been crawled as far as I can tell with errors reported on pages from the "members only" section of the site, leading me to believe the members only pages and their content will contribute to the sites overall ranking profile. I have suggested uploading the informational videos on the main pages of the site for now, making them accessible to all visitors and putting them in a more obvious place to encourage more sharing and views, however I've also said I would check it out with some experts so any information will be greatly appreciated! Many thanks 🙂 Charlotte
Technical SEO | | CharlotteWaller0 -
The course of action to move my macro site to some mini sites- justin if you can help
We have a site that we want to break up into mini sites but keep the old site for the major brands. Empirecovers.com is the major and we want to break it off into Empire Truck Covers and Empire Boat covers. What I am thinking of doing is linking from the home to Empiretruckcovers.com instead of a mini page on the site and 301 redirect the mini page to empiretruckcovers.com. Than (there wont be duplicate content) making a small page for truck covers on empire just so people do not get confused. Is this the best way to go or what do you suggest? We are doing this because I feel there is seo value in having mini sites and also the user experience will be cleaner and people will trust it a lot more than inside a big site. The other problem is I have some great rankings on the pages so I want to do it so there is as little damage as possible. I guess once I start I will do all the free directories, yahoo directory and try to get links as fast as I can. Any suggestions would be great. I am going to do a/b testing to see if my adwords convert better on mini site or on the big site for certain keywords too
Technical SEO | | goldjake17880