Webmaster tools crawl errors
-
Hi there,
iv been tracking my webmaster tools crawl errors for a while now(6 months) and im noticing some pages that are far gone 404 are still poping out on the crawl errors. - that pages have no data for xml linking, and remote linking are from pages that are far gone 404 also.
that pages have 404 error page + redirect to homepage, and google still notice them with old cache content.
does someone have a clue why is this happening?
-
Thank you very much Dana for the superb answer!
any clue for how much this errors are critical for my website seo? (is this problem worth fixing)
-
Hi!
Have you verified that there is a proper 301 redirect from the old URL's? If, for example, there is a 302 instead, I wouldn't be surprised if Google kept the old info in the index, as you have sort of said "I'll be back soon at this old address, just wait a minute (or year)".
Do you have an example URL for us that we could take a look at?
-
Hi Dana,
If your looking for someone to confirm what Dana said she is 100% right.
If your using a data base like WordPress it is posable for it to hold old pages and serve them. Make sure your host knows of your problem if you are using a CMS.
Hope this helps,
Thomas
-
Yes, I understand this issue very well and have seen it many times. Most often, it is happening because another of your pages that is being indexed is still referencing those pages. Please forgive Google, it is but a humble, not-so-intelligent bot (despite what the world would have you think). If you keep referencing a page that doesn't exist, Googlebot will say to itself "but it does exist! it does!" and keep indexing it, despite the 404 error. I mean, for all Google knows, it is your intention to bring that page back and maybe you just screwed up and it is 404-ing, you know?
Here's the remedy:
Do a content audit. Here's a great post on how to do that: http://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/how-to-perform-a-content-audit/
You will discover many things, without a doubt, including pages that are linking to these 404 pages. Decide what to do with those pages, i.e. nix them, re-build them, whatever. If you have pages in Google that you really do want out of the index and those same pages are 404-ing....simply go to your Google Webmaster Tools Account and in the left nav select "Google Index" and then "Remove URLs." Then simply click the box that says "create a new removal request" and enter the desired URL into that Box. Provided your page meets the requirements (and if it's producing a 404 error it does) Google will prioritize its removal. Under no circumstances should this be confused with the disavow tool. Just to make that clear.
I hope this helps. Any questions and I'm happy to help further if I can.
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
-
Hey guys, any advice on why my 'search analytics' in Google Webmaster tools is blank with no data?
I have added all the website versions into Google web master tools and I have no crawl errors. When I click on Search traffic these pages are blank - search analytics, & Mobile usability. And When I fetch as Google the status is constantly saying me 'temporarily unreachable' - any help would be greatly appreciated.
Reporting & Analytics | | HLAS0 -
On Google Analytics, Pages that were 301 redirected are still being crawled. What's the issue here?
URL that we redirected are being crawled on Google Analytics. Since they dont exist, they have high bounce rates. What can the issue be?
Reporting & Analytics | | prestigeluxuryrentals.com0 -
Google Tag Assistant showing Error
Hello, I am using google tag assistant extension in chrome and it is giving me one error for google tag manager at my checkout step 1 and error is -
Reporting & Analytics | | devdan0 -
Wordpress site with increase number of Crawl(400 response Code) errors in Others section of GWT
I have a wordpress site http://muslim-academy.com/I check in Google Webmasters tool today and I see the increase number of errors in Others area of Google webmaster Tool.The error code is 400http://muslim-academy.com/%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%B1%D8%A9-%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%AE%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D9%84%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%A6%D9%8A%D8%B3-%D8%AC%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%84-%D8%B9%D8%A8%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%B5%D8%B1-2/%D8%B3%D9%....%3Cbr%20/%3E________________%3Cbr%20/%3E___________%3Ca%20href=?lang=zhOne of the example link of this error.Can you guide me why the number of errors are increasing and how to fix the existing errors.
Reporting & Analytics | | csfarnsworth0 -
2 days in the past week Google has crawled 10x the average pages crawled per day. What does this mean?
For the past 3 months my site www.dlawlesshardware.com has had an average of about 400 pages crawled per day by google. We have just over 6,000 indexed pages. However, twice in the last week, Google crawled an enormous percentage of my site. After averaging 400 pages crawled for the last 3 months, the last 4 days of crawl stats say the following. 2/1 - 4,373 pages crawled 2/2 - 367 pages crawled 2/3 - 4,777 pages crawled 2/4 - 437 pages crawled What is the deal with these enormous spike in pages crawled per day? Of course, there are also corresponding spikes in kilobytes downloaded per day. Essentially, Google averages crawling about 6% of my site a day. But twice in the last week, Google decided to crawl just under 80% of my site. Has this happened to anyone else? Any ideas? I have literally no idea what this means and I haven't found anyone else with the same problem. Only people complaining about massive DROPS in pages crawled per day. Here is a screenshot from Webmaster Tools: http://imgur.com/kpnQ8EP The drop in time spent downloading a page corresponded exactly to an improvement in our CSS. So that probably doesn't need to be considered, although I'm up for any theories from anyone about anything.
Reporting & Analytics | | dellcos0 -
Re-running Crawl Diagnostics
I have made a bunch of changes thanks to the Crawl Diagnostics Tool but now need to re-run as I have lost where I started and what still needs to be done. How do I re-run the crawl diagnostic tool?
Reporting & Analytics | | Professor1 -
Google API Tools - Next Analytics
Have you used any API tools like Next Analytics and/or can you recommend another tool that is particularly useful for a SEO?
Reporting & Analytics | | KnutDSvendsen0 -
What factors does the Keyword Difficulty Tool measure?
Hi Guys I am new to this community and finding loads of informative stuff here. The keyword difficulty tool looks very interesting. I think google keyword tool competetion field is based on PPC competetion? Will i be right in saying that the moz keyword difficulty tool measures top 10 ranking pages, their age, backlinks etc?
Reporting & Analytics | | SamBuck0