Fixing errors from SEOmoz diagnostic survey
-
I just ran a report from the SEOmoz diagnostic survey and was surprised to see errors. How did I fix these errors? Thanks in advance for your help, I have been pleasantly surprised at the thoughtfulness and responsiveness of this community:
Errors:
5XX (server error)
Overly Dynamic URL
302 Temporary Redirect
Too many on page links (how many is ideal?)
-
Hi Volkinator,
The 5XX Error is a generic error message which means that the crawler encountered an Internal Server Error. You will need to check your server logs for information that will point you to the source of the error - generally this will be a server software error that needs fixing. If you don't have the expertise to do this you will need to ask your Techs or Server administrator to fix it for you.
The Overly Dynamic URL notice is a Warning, rather than an Error. This is intended to bring to your attention the fact that these URL's contain more than 2 parameters. While search engines can crawl dynamic URL's, representatives of some search engines have advised that the inclusion of more than 2 parameters may negatively impact their ability to crawl. The Warning is provided by the SEOmoz Pro App so that you have the opportunity to correct the situation if you wish, however this may not always be possible. It is essentially your choice whether you pursue a fix for this one or not. Generally, if you have a small number of URLs with this problem it is probably not going to have a huge effect on your site. However, if the URL's concerned happen to be those related to your most important products or services, then you may want to get them fixed.
The 302 Redirect notice is also a Warning rather than an error. The main reason for highlighting them is to make you aware that they are not passing link value from page to page. If you have redirected the URLs with the intention that they will always point to the new URL, you should consider changing them to 301 Redirects as this will allow link value to flow from page to page. One reason for a lot of 302 Redirects on an ecommerce site may be that Buy buttons are set up to 302 redirect instead of using standard links. If yours is an ecommerce site and you have a lot of 302's this could be the reason.
Also a Warning, the Too Many On-page Links notice is telling you that there are more than 100 links on the page.
The explanation at the top of the page when you click the button to see the URLs in question is probably the best way of explaining. Here it is:
"You should avoid having too many (roughly defined as more than 100) hyperlinks on any given page. When search engine spiders crawl the Internet they are limited by technology resources and are only able to crawl a certain number of links per webpage. In addition, search engine algorithms divide the value of some popularity metrics by the amount of links on a given page. This means that each of the pages being linked to from a given page are also affected by the number of links on the linking page. For these reasons, we recommend you include less than 100 links per page to ensure that they are all crawled, though if your pages have a high page authority, search engines will usually follow more links."
The most important part of this is the watering down of link value, but sometimes extensive navigation will mean that you are more prone to having more than 100 links on the page. Once again, it is your decision as to whether you accept the issue as sub-optimal, but unavoidable, or whether you pursue a fix.
Hope that helps
Sha
-
If you click on each error, you can get more info on the error and where it is occurring. You can also download a CSV report and open in excel (or another spreadsheet program) and see more details about the errors.
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
-
Could my Crawl Error Report be wrong?
HI there, I am using Yoast SEO plugin on a wordpress website. I am currently showing 70 Med priority crawl errors 'missing meta description' on my Moz pro account. This number of missing meta descriptions has increased over the last 6 weeks. But every single page / post / tag / category has both the title and meta description completed via Yoast. I requested a google bot to crawl the site a few weeks ago as thought it perhaps wasn't been crawled and updated. Any idea what the issue might be? Could the Moz report be incorrect for some reason? Or could something be blocking Moz / Google from seeing the Yoast plugin?
Moz Pro | | skehoe0 -
How to fix overly dynamic URLs for Volusion site?
We're currently getting over 5439 pages with an 'overly dynamic URL' warning in our Moz scan. The site is run on Volusion. Is there a way to fix this seeming Volusion error?
Moz Pro | | Brandon_Clay0 -
Does SEOmoz give a way to know what link on what page produces the 404 errors that SEOmoz is telling me I have??
SEOmoz gives me a report of 404 errors on my site. Do they give a way to know from what link on what page produces the error?
Moz Pro | | MeridianGroup0 -
Even blackhat world wished me happy birthday... What up SEOmoz?
Blackhat World: "We at Black Hat Forum Black Hat SEO would like to wish you a happy birthday today!" SEOmoz: crickets Happy birthday indeed watch?v=JOBYJrVQm3A
Moz Pro | | JasonJackson0 -
404 errors in SEOMoz crawl tool
I currently have several 404 errors in the latest crawls from SEOMoz. Here is an example of the error. http://dealerplatform.com/blog/2011/10/23/videos-for-auto-dealers/www.dealerplatform.com/ In all cases the error is a result of www.dealerplatform.com being added to the real url. Anyone seen this before? The site is a wordpress mutlisite. I don't see where this incorrect link is showing up anywhere on the website. Any advice would be helpful. Thanks
Moz Pro | | Chris_Gregory0 -
SEOmoz PRO Custom Reports Issues
This post is for all PRO members, On January 2, 2012, we found a serious bug in our custom reporting system that made it possible for some of our customers to see other customers’ custom reports. This affected less than 1% of our customers in total (.6 % to be exact). Fewer than 100 reports could potentially be viewed by another customer. We are taking this matter very seriously. 98 accounts were affected and we will be contacting those people individually via their account email addresses. If you do not receive an email from us, don’t worry - you were not affected. Soon after we discovered the problem, we completely turned off access to these reports; even though people may have been provided access previously, the access was limited to a short time period. They no longer have access to the reports whatsoever. The issue has now been resolved and all reports moving forward are functioning properly. For more information on what caused the issue, how it's been resolved and any other updates on the issue, follow the thread here: http://seomoz.zendesk.com/entries/20836338-custom-reports-issues-resolved. We'll add any updates there. Also, we'd like to have all comments/questions from members in one place, so please use the Zendesk link for comments. We really appreciate your patience while we work through this. If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact us at help@seomoz.org - we're always happy to help. Sincerely, Jen Lopez
Moz Pro | | jennita
Community Manager, SEOmoz0 -
Duplicate Content and Titles in SEOMoz reports
I've had to rename some of the pages on my site and also move them to different locations. I placed a rel="canonical" on the old page pointing to the new one. The reports on my PRO Dashboard are telling me that I have Duplicate Content and Page Title errors. Do the SEOMoz automated reports take the rel="canonical" link into consideration or do I need to remove these pages and do a 301 redirect from the old to the new page?
Moz Pro | | TRICORSystems0 -
Canonical tags and SEOmoz crawls
Hi there. Recently, we've made some changes to http://www.gear-zone.co.uk/ to implement canonical tags to some dynamically generated pages to stop duplicate content issues. Previously, these were blocked with robots.txt. In Webmaster Tools, everything looks great - pages crawled has shot up, and overall traffic and sales has seen a positive increase. However the SEOmoz crawl report is now showing a huge increase in duplicate content issues. What I'd like to know is whether SEOmoz registers a canonical tag as preventing a piece of duplicate content, or just adds to it the notices report. That is, if I have 10 pages of duplicate content all with correct canonical tags, will I still see 10 errors in the crawl, but also 10 notices showing a canonical has been found? Or, should it be 0 duplicate content errors, but 10 notices of canonicals? I know it's a small point, but it could potentially have a big difference. Thanks!
Moz Pro | | neooptic0