Help with strange 404 Errors.
-
For the most part I have never had trouble tracking down 404's. Usually it's simply a broken link, but lately I have been getting these strange errors
http://gridironexperts.com/http%3A/www.nfl.com/gamecenter?game_id=29528&season=2008&displayPage=tab_gamecenter/
- What does; %C2%94 repersent?
- The error always points to NFL.com, but we don't link to them...like ever?
- Can I just 404: http://gridironexperts.com// to fix the problem, as all 404's start with this weird %C2%94 error.
- Is this error even on my site? Is in the backend...virus?
thanks
-Mike
-
When you say it did not fix them, do you mean that the 301 was not working, or that the 404s did not go away in the GWT report?
You will not see an immediate change in GWT for those errors. They may take 30-90 days to clear out. If you have them fixed, you can mark them as such and then take the error out of your console.
As a part of the SEO Membership, check out the SEOMoz report for some option. I have used Screaming Frog SEO spider with some success to look through my site and find random links.
P
-
Just to clarify. 404s dont always come from links on your site. Often, these are links on other sites etc that Google has in its index that they found somewhere and are trying to see if the 404s dont work.
Not saying that it is not malware, but clarifying the angle on these.
-
Actually. I tried to 301 direct http://gridironexperts.com// to the home page and it didn't fix the 404's.
can you send me a link to that spider reference you mentioned
-
Thanks - please mark as answered and like if you please!
-
cool that's what I was thinking. Thanks so much. awesome answer
you went above and beyond
-
Hey there. The %C2 %94 %3A are simply ASCII values of encoded versions of special characters in the URL.
http://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_urlencode.asp
%3A is the same as a colon
%C2 is Â
%94 is "
This simply puts those characters in a format that is easier for the browser to read and then convert into a format it can use.
Couple of things to check on where this comes from.
Get a spider program and see if somewhere, waaay out there in the back ends of your content library that you have some crazy goofed up link that got planted here. Find it an delete it
Other than that, somewhere out on the internets, as my developer likes to say, "A bunch of monkeys banged heads on keyboards" There are site scrapers that do not do a good job and take your content and then repost it and they screw up all kinds of formatting and you end up with links like the above pointing to your site. The spiders look for it and you get a 404.
I just did a Google search on
www.nfl.com/gamecenter?game_id=29528&season=2008&displayPage=tab_gamecenter/
and you get all kinds of random pages linking to that.
Here is what I would do. You mention most errors start with
You can 301 all those to another page. Or, show a simple helpful page for the user to navigate off of with a noindex, nofollow meta tag. The noindex tag would get those pages out of the index at least and not show a 404 error.
-
You may want to check GWT under malware. That seems odd that you never link to NFL, but the 404 is coming from your site.
Check the source code of those particular pages that are giving the 404s. Check line by line for anything you don't recognize. Also, make SURE there aren't any .ru TLDs there.
When my site got attacked, my hosting company stepped up and did a scan of malware and they found severall things. So maybe your hosting company can do a scan for you.
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
-
Moving From HubSpot Help
I am migrating from hubspot to wordpress. How do i do this so i maintain my previous seo efforts. I have about 10 optimized blog posts. Can i cut and paste them into the wordpress blog or use a 301 url rewrite? Add to domain? Totally clueless! Your Noobian Friend! Jay
Technical SEO | | freshairtech0 -
Is there a way of changing the Permalink without getting the 404 Error?
Hi, I am new to this all.. Is there a way of changing the permalink for example from: domain/content/ to domain/profile/ without receiving the 404 error message. It's just that since my website has been developed, some pages and their content have changed but the permalink still shows the name of the old page which may be confusing. Ps. Please use most simple language for explanations as I am really new to it. Thank you! Ve
Technical SEO | | MissVe0 -
Weird 404 Errors in Webmaster Tools
Hi, In a regular check with Webmaster Tools, I have noticed a sudden increase in the number of "not found-404" errors. So I have been looking at them and noticed something weird has been going on. There are well over 100 pages with 404-errors. The funny thing is, none of the ULR's are correct, For example, if the actual url is something like www.domain.com/latest-reviews , the 404-error points to a non-existent URL like www.domain.com/latest-re And when I checked where they were linked from, they are all from these spammy sites. Anyone know what could be causing these links, why would anyone link on purpose to a non-existent page? cheers,
Technical SEO | | Gamer070 -
Help with this metadata code!
My website developer used the code below for my metadata but SEomoz is showing an error for my metadata. How can I change with this code so it will work?
Technical SEO | | CapitolShine0 -
Duplicate Content Errors
Ok, old fat client developer new at SEO so I apologize if this is obvious. I have 4 errors in one of my campaigns. two are duplicate content and two are duplicate title. Here is the duplicate title error Rare Currency And Old Paper Money Values and Information.
Technical SEO | | Banknotes
http://www.antiquebanknotes.com/ Rare Currency And Old Paper Money Values and Information.
http://www.antiquebanknotes.com/Default.aspx So, my question is... What do I need to do to make this right? They are the same page. in my page load for default.aspx I have this: this.Title = "Rare Currency And Old Paper Money Values and Information."; And it occurs only once...0 -
Google Webmaster tools error?
So I am trying to set the URL preference in google webmaster tools for my site. However when I try to save it it tells me to verify that I own the site. I have already done this so where can I go to verify I own the site exactly? Maybe I am wrong and I have not done this already but even on the homepage of webmaster tools I don't see an option to "verify".
Technical SEO | | ENSO0 -
Help with Rel Canonical on Wordpress?
Crawl Diagnostics is showing a lot of Rel Canonical warnings, I've installed Wordpress SEO by Joose De Valk and Home Canonical URL plugins without success. Any ideas? I'm getting a lot of URL's that I thought I blocked from being indexed, such as author pages, category pages, etc. I'm also getting stuff like "recessionitis.com/?homeq=recent" and "recessionitis.com/page/2/", those pages are similar to my homepage. I thought those plugins were suppose to automatically clean things up.. anyone use these plugins that have any helpful hints?
Technical SEO | | 10JQKAs0 -
Strange duplicate url
From your csv report I have this strange issue. This url: elettrodomestici.yeppon.it/climatizzatori/condizionatori-fissi/prodotti/condizionatori-fissi-comfee/ it's a duplicate of this elettrodomestici.yeppon.it/climatizzatori/condizionatori-fissi/prodotti/condizionatori-fissi-comfee/ but the only url that I can see in the website is this one. Why the "-" is transalted some times in "%2D" referrer obviously is elettrodomestici.yeppon.it/climatizzatori/condizionatori-fissi/prodotti/condizionatori-fissi-comfee/solo-disponibili/ I have many duplicate url...Can you help me? Thanks
Technical SEO | | yeppon0