Error reports showing pages that don't exist on website
-
I have a website that is showing lots of errors (pages that cannot be found) in google webmaster tools. I went through the errors and re-directed the pages I could. There are a bunch of remaining pages that are not really pages this is why they are showing errors. What's strange is some of the URL's are showing feeds which these were never created. I went into Google webmaster tools and looked at the remove URL tool. I am using this but I am confused if I need to be selecting "remove page from search results and cache" option or should I be selecting this other option "remove directory" I am confused on the directory. I don't want to accidentally delete core pages of the site from the search engines.
Can anybody shed some light on this or recommend which I should be selecting?
Thank you
Wendy
-
I would avoid using the "remove URL" option in GWT. The 301s are more ideal in my opinion because let's say I have that old URL posted on my website somewhere, and now it's going to a 404 page. When you redirect it, people will be taken to a different page, and you don't have to worry about having me update the old URL on my website. The link will work, it will take you to an active page and can get you some traffic. However, the "remove URL" option won't give you this same benefit.
Here's a helpful link straight from the source on when NOT to use the Remove URL option: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1269119?hl=en
-
Ok this sounds good because it's not exactly duplicate content so it would be better I agree to do the redirect. I downloaded a redirect plugin yesterday that worked pretty good. I noticed that some pages have already redirected people (the tool has an area to see this)
Final question for you, what are your thoughts on that "remove URL" option in Google Webmaster tools? Wasn't sure if that would be better than a 301 redirect for these remaining senseless errors.
Just curious on your thoughts.
Thank you
-
Rel=canonical is used more when you have duplicate content. If you have the same post or page in two areas, you can use the rel=canonical tag to tell Google where the original of the duplicate is. It sounds like you don't need rel=canonical in this situation.
It sounds like you have 80-something 404 Page Not Found errors. I would use the "Redirection" plugin with Wordpress. Take each URL that is giving you the 404 error in your report, and redirect each one to the most relevant page associated with what was supposed to be on the page that is giving the 404 error. If there really is no relevant page at all, I would just redirect it to the homepage. In my opinion, it's better to have it redirect to the homepage than to have the user land on a 404 page. I would do that for every 404 error you are getting. Doing this, I don't think you'll need rel=canonical at all.
-
Thank you for your reply. You are correct the site is in wordpress. The long story of this whole situation is this....I had initially built the client a wordpress site, things were fine with, traffic and business was good for him. Then one day one of his employees suggested that her father build him a new site that was more graphically pleasing (rather than saying can you please update the graphics on the current site) so the father built an entirely new site on Joomla (I didn't find this out until he was launching this new Joomla site) The guy also went and changed the domain to a www. the original site I had built had no www on it. Fast Forward.....I have re-built the site in wordpress, went back to the non www version. The errors I am getting I have 301 re-directed where I could. I have also in webmaster tools changed the site settings to the preferred domain.(the new site) I fetched all the new pages in Google. I have submitted new site maps. I'm down to 82 errors. The errors are showing pages that do not exist and to re-direct those pages I don't have pages that would really make sense to re-direct them to. I'm wondering now if I'm to a point where I need to "remove the URL's" as offered in Google webmaster tools...??? What do you think on this?
As for the rel-canonical....I understand why I would use these. I see in the Yoast plug in where I can insert the rel-canonical. My question is this:Do I insert the rel-canonical on the page that is correct? So I go to my correct website (the non www one) and go to that page that is correct and I prefer the engines index that page and insert the rel-canonical on that page that is the preferred one? Or am I to go to the non preferred page and insert the rel-canonical on that page so when search engines see that wrong page they see the rel-canonical tag showing them the correct page to index? I looked at a video by Matt Cutts and I wasn't clear on which page I put the rel-canonical on (old site or new one?) I don't have access to the old site so this is why I was thinking maybe just "remove the URL's" as offered up in webmaster tools.
Your input? I really appreciate your help. Thank you
-
For me personally, on Wordpress I use the Yoast SEO tool and I went through the tutorial on the Yoast website. He shows you how to eliminate a lot of the duplicate content that automatically gets created with all Wordpress websites. Once you noindex and get rid of all the unnecessary archives and all that, at that point I would recommend going back to the error report and see the difference and see if those pages keep coming up. If they do, just simply 301 redirect them to another page on your website. Then check again after you redirect them and see what you're left with. Sometimes it takes a couple weeks to reflect from what I've seen. Not sure if this is the exact issue you're having, or if you're even using Wordpress at all, but it sounds like if you are this might help you as it helped me get my errors down to zero.
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
-
Pages built on same model some rank some don’t ?
I have multiple webpages built on the same exact model and none of them have external links ? Some rank within a few days some don’t why is that ? Has anyone experienced this ? and any idea what it could be due to ? I have 2 possibilities lsi density or lsi used or topics used ? Does anyone ha e any other idea ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics1 -
Duplicate page content errors for Web App Login
Hi There I have 6 duplicate content errors, but they are for the WebApp login from our website. I have put a Noindex on the Sitemap to stop google from indexing them to see if that would work. But it didn't. These links as far as I can see are not even on the website www.skemaz.net, but are links beyond the website and on the Web App itself eg : <colgroup><col width="529"></colgroup>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Skemazer
| http://login.skemaz.net |
| http://login.skemaz.net/LogIn?ReturnUrl=%2Fchangepassword |
| http://login.skemaz.net/Login |
| http://login.skemaz.net/LogIn?ReturnUrl=%2FHome | Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Kind regards Sarah0 -
Why won't my sub-domain blog rank for my brand name in Google?
For six months or so, my team and I have been trying to get our blog to rank on page one in Google for the term "Instabill." The URL, http://blog.instabill.com, is a sub-domain of our company website and they both use the same IP address. Three pages on our www.Instabill.com site rank in the top three spots when searching our brand name in Google. However, our blog ranks 100+. For our blog, we are currently using b2evolution and nginx. We have tried adding static content on the home page, static content in the sidebar, static content on an About Instabill page, and optimizing blog posts for the keyword Instabill, but nothing seems to work. We appreciate any advice you can provide to us. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Instabill
Meghan0 -
Client Can't Write His Own Articles
Hello, I'm helping a client put together an FAQ and 5 thorough, graphically stimulating, articles. The client can easily write his FAQ articles. However, he's not knowledgeable enough to write the 5 thorough articles, and hiring an expert to write them from scratch would cost a huge chunk of money. Should we have a writer put together an outline or rough draft and present that to the expert for editing? The client can afford that. Or what's the best way to move forward without costing a huge amount of money?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW1 -
My warning report says I have too many on page links - 517! I can't find 50% of them but my q is about no follow
if we put 'no follow' on some of these links does that mean the search engines won't index the no follow pages even if those pages are linked to from elsewhere? no link juice will flow from the page with the (no follow) links on? Just trying to understand why my rankings have dropped so dramatically in the last 6 weeks or so since we redesigned the site, and it might be that now we have too many links on the homepage. This is the page http://www.suffolktouristguide.com/ All suggestions appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SarahinSuffolk0 -
301 doesn't redirect a page that ends in %20, and others being appended with ?q=
I have a product page that ends /product-name**%20** that I'm trying to redirect in this way: Redirect 301 /products/product-name%20 http://www.site.com/products/product-name And it doesn't redirect at all. The others, those with %20, are being redirected to a url hybrid of old and new: http://www.site.com/products/product-name**?q=old-url** I'm using Drupal CMS, and it may be creating rules that counter my entries.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Brocberry0 -
Soft 404's from pages blocked by robots.txt -- cause for concern?
We're seeing soft 404 errors appear in our google webmaster tools section on pages that are blocked by robots.txt (our search result pages). Should we be concerned? Is there anything we can do about this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline4 -
Google sees redirect when there isn't any?
I've posted a question previously regarding the very strange changes in our search positions here http://www.seomoz.org/q/different-pages-ranking-for-search-terms-often-irrelevant New strange thing I've noticed - and very disturbing thing - seems like Google has somehow glued two pages together. Or, in other words, looks like Google sees a 301 redirect from one page to another. This, actually, happened to several pages, I'll illustrate it with our Flash templates page. URL: http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | templatemonster
Has been #3 for 'Flash templates' in Google. Reasons why it looks like redirect:
Reason #1
Now this http://www.templatemonster.com/logo-templates.php page is ranking instead of http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php
Also, http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php is not in the index.
That what would typically happen if you had 301 from Flash templates to logo templates page. Reason #2
If you search for cache:http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php Google will give the cahced version of http://www.templatemonster.com/logo-templates.php!!!
If you search for info:www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php you again get info on http://www.templatemonster.com/logo-templates.php instead! Reason #3
In Google Webmaster Tools when I look for the external links to http://www.templatemonster.com/logo-templates.php I see all the links from different sites, which actually point to http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php listed as "Via this intermediate link: http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php" As I understand Google makes this "via intermediate link" when there's a redirect? That way, currently Google thinks that all the external links we have for Flash templates are actually pointing to Logo templates? The point is we NEVER had any kind of redirect from http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php to http://www.templatemonster.com/logo-templates.php I've seen several similar situations on Google Help forums but they were never resolved. So, I wonder if anybody can explain how that could have happened, and what can be done to solve that problem?0