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.
404 error - but I can't find any broken links on the referrer pages
-
Hi,
My crawl has diagnosed a client's site with eight 404 errors.
In my CSV download of the crawl, I have checked the source code of the 'referrer' pages, but can't find where the link to the 404 error page is. Could there be another reason for getting 404 errors?
Thanks for your help.
Katharine.
-
Are you getting any crawl errors in Google Webmaster tools?
-
Thank you. I will do.
-
Xenu looks good to me for that page as well. I'd do an-demand crawl for that page/site from http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/crawl-test and if it's still showing up, send an email to help@seomoz.org so we can look and see if there's an error in the crawl software.
Thanks!
-
Thanks! At least I know I am not going blind! No, the CSV came from SEO Moz's report.
-
Hi Sarah,
I wasn't able to find errors on that page. Just to confirm the CSV of the crawl, is that coming from Google Webmasters?
Iain
-
Hi Iain,
Thanks for your help. The site was recrawled on the weekend after attempted updates had been made and I downloaded a new CSV. The broken links are still showing and I still can't find where they are on the page?!
Screaming Frog has not shown up any errors however.
Not sure what else to do! Were you able to see any broken links in the example URLs I posted above?
Many thanks,
Katharine.
-
When was the CSV download of the crawl taken? Have any changes been made to that page since?
Did the same 404 show up when you used Screaming Frog?
Thanks
Iain - Reload Media
-
I wondered if it would help if I got more specific.
For example, this 404 error link
http://www.soccer2000.com/store/X10498!ADI/CONDIVO%2B12%2B3/4%2BPANT
Is supposedly found on this page:
http://www.soccer2000.com/store/cat/APP/APPAREL
But I can't find it anywhere - any ideas why?
Thanks again.
-
Thanks! Fingers crossed this is what caused it.
-
Hi Katherine,
Try using Screaming Frog SEO software to crawl you site. That should pick up if you have a incorrect internal links.
For external links pointing to none existent pages, try Majestic SEO. It has the largest amount of link data (Sorry Open Site Explorer, but you know it's true).
Hope that helps
Iain - Reload Media
-
The crawl runs once a week, so maybe the broken links have been corrected since the last report. Wait for the next report and check if they still appear.
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
-
Crawl solutions for landing pages that don't contain a robots.txt file?
My site (www.nomader.com) is currently built on Instapage, which does not offer the ability to add a robots.txt file. I plan to migrate to a Shopify site in the coming months, but for now the Instapage site is my primary website. In the interim, would you suggest that I manually request a Google crawl through the search console tool? If so, how often? Any other suggestions for countering this Meta Noindex issue?
Technical SEO | | Nomader1 -
Google has deindexed a page it thinks is set to 'noindex', but is in fact still set to 'index'
A page on our WordPress powered website has had an error message thrown up in GSC to say it is included in the sitemap but set to 'noindex'. The page has also been removed from Google's search results. Page is https://www.onlinemortgageadvisor.co.uk/bad-credit-mortgages/how-to-get-a-mortgage-with-bad-credit/ Looking at the page code, plus using Screaming Frog and Ahrefs crawlers, the page is very clearly still set to 'index'. The SEO plugin we use has not been changed to 'noindex' the page. I have asked for it to be reindexed via GSC but I'm concerned why Google thinks this page was asked to be noindexed. Can anyone help with this one? Has anyone seen this before, been hit with this recently, got any advice...?
Technical SEO | | d.bird0 -
Can I use a 301 redirect to pass 'back link' juice to a different domain?
Hi, I have a backlink from a high DA/PA Government Website pointing to www.domainA.com which I own and can setup 301 redirects on if necessary. However my www.domainA.com is not used and has no active website (but has hosting available which can 301 redirect). www.domainA.com is also contextually irrelevant to the backlink. I want the Government Website link to go to www.domainB.com - which is both the relevant site and which also should be benefiting from from the seo juice from the backlink. So far I have had no luck to get the Government Website's administrators to change the URL on the link to point to www.domainB.com. Q1: If i use a 301 redirect on www.domainA.com to redirect to www.domainB.com will most of the backlink's SEO juice still be passed on to www.domainB.com? Q2: If the answer to the above is yes - would there be benefit to taking this a step further and redirect www.domainA.com to a deeper directory on www.domianB.com which is even more relevant?
Technical SEO | | DGAU
ie. redirect www.domainA.com to www.domainB.com/categoryB - passing the link juice deeper.0 -
Hundreds of 404 errors are showing up for pages that never existed
For our site, Google is suddenly reporting hundreds of 404 errors, but the pages they are reporting never existed. The links Google shows are clearly spam style, but the website hasn't been hacked. This happened a few weeks ago, and after a couple days they disappeared from WMT. What's the deal? Screen-Shot-2016-02-29-at-9.35.18-AM.png
Technical SEO | | MichaelGregory0 -
Why Can't Googlebot Fetch Its Own Map on Our Site?
I created a custom map using google maps creator and I embedded it on our site. However, when I ran the fetch and render through Search Console, it said it was blocked by our robots.txt file. I read in the Search Console Help section that: 'For resources blocked by robots.txt files that you don't own, reach out to the resource site owners and ask them to unblock those resources to Googlebot." I did not setup our robtos.txt file. However, I can't imagine it would be setup to block google from crawling a map. i will look into that, but before I go messing with it (since I'm not familiar with it) does google automatically block their maps from their own googlebot? Has anyone encountered this before? Here is what the robot.txt file says in Search Console: User-agent: * Allow: /maps/api/js? Allow: /maps/api/js/DirectionsService.Route Allow: /maps/api/js/DistanceMatrixService.GetDistanceMatrix Allow: /maps/api/js/ElevationService.GetElevationForLine Allow: /maps/api/js/GeocodeService.Search Allow: /maps/api/js/KmlOverlayService.GetFeature Allow: /maps/api/js/KmlOverlayService.GetOverlays Allow: /maps/api/js/LayersService.GetFeature Disallow: / Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Ruben
Technical SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup1 -
How to find temporary redirects of existing site you don't control?
I am getting ready to move a clients site from another company. They have like 35 tempory redirects according to MOZ. Question is, how can I find out then current redirects so I can update everything for the new site? Do I need access to the current htaccess file to do this?
Technical SEO | | scott3150 -
Increase 404 errors or 301 redirects?
Hi all, I'm working on an e-commerce site that sells products that may only be available for a certain period of time. Eg. A product may only be selling for 1 year and then be permanently out of stock. When a product goes out of stock, the page is removed from the site regardless of any links it may have gotten over time. I am trying to figure out the best way to handle these permanently out of stock pages. At the moment, the site is set up to return a 404 page for each of these products. There are currently 600 (and increasing) instances of this appearing on Google Webmasters. I have read that too many 404 errors may have a negative impact on your site, and so thought I might 301 redirect these URLs to a more appropriate page. However I've also read that too many 301 redirects may have a negative impact on your site. I foresee this to be an issue several years down the road when the site has thousands of expired products which will result in thousands of 404 errors or 301 redirects depending on which route I take. Which would be the better route? Is there a better solution?
Technical SEO | | Oxfordcomma0 -
Miss meta description on 404 page
Hi, My 404 page did not have meta description. Is it an error? Because I run report and seomoz said that a problem. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | JohnHuynh0