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.
Backlinks that we have if they are 404?
-
Hi All,
Backlinks that we have if they are 404?
Open site explorer shows 1,000 of links and when I check many are 404 and those are spammy links which we had but now the sites are 404
I am doing a link profile check which is cleaning up all spammy links
Should i take any action on them? As open site explorer or Google still shows these links on the searches.
Should we mention these URL's in disallow in Google webmaster.
Thanks
-
If you delete the page (URL) with the link (clickable words that takes the visitor to another URL), Google will eventually recognize that the URL no longer exists and drop it from the index. That may take anywhere from a few days to a month or more.
Once the URL is out of the index, whatever links were on that URL won't count against you.
You may use the URL removal tool in Google webmaster tools to try to speed up the process of removing the URL from the index. There is no need to use the disavow tool for a URL that resolves to a 404 page.
-
Thanks
To be more clear here is the details
1. We have spammers who first post irrelevant content on our site
2. We delete them in 1 or 2 hrs and within this time
3. They spam many other sites with the post link of our on those sites
Now the link they posted is deleted and 404.
i have 4 questions
a. Many of these links that are on spam sites are 404. Should i take any action
b. All these pages are 100% made just to spam or even the sites are made to spam. Should i take any action
c. Some sites itself are down and guess they are shutdown as they were made just to spam. Should i take any action
d. Should i disallow all such links
I havent received any penalty notice but my traffic has dropped by 70%
-
Your question is a little unclear but I think you're saying that you have backlinks that point to certain pages and now you have 404'd those pages. If this is the case then Google treats those links as dead. According to John Mueller of Google, links going to 404'd pages don't count towards PageRank.
-
If the links are coming from URLs that no longer exist, then think of them kind of like ghosts. Their likenesses are still showing up on reports to give you a scare but their bodies aren't around and can't do you any harm. Eventually they'll fade away from the reports any they'll be nothing more a distant memory. So, no, non-existent links don't need to be disallowed.
Sorry, I was watching a ghost movie last night.
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
-
If I get spammy backlinks removed is it still necessary to disavow?
Now there is some conflicting beliefs here and I want to know what you think. If I got a high spam website to remove my backlink, is a disavow through search console still necessary ? Keep in mind if it helps even in the slightest to improve rankings im for it!
Technical SEO | | Colemckeon1 -
Backlinks that go to a redirected URL
Hey guys, just wondering, my client has 3 websites, 2 of 3 will be closed down and the domains will be permanently redirected to the 1 primary domain - however they have some high quality backlinks pointing the domains that will be redirected. How does this effective SEO? Domain One (primary - getting redesign and rebuilt) - not many backlinks
Technical SEO | | thinkLukeSEO
Domain Two (will redirect to Domain One) - has quality backlinks
Domain Three (will redirect to Domain One) - has quality backlinks When the new website is launched on Domain One I will contact the backlink providers and request they update their URL - i assume that would be the best.0 -
Duplicate content and 404 errors
I apologize in advance, but I am an SEO novice and my understanding of code is very limited. Moz has issued a lot (several hundred) of duplicate content and 404 error flags on the ecommerce site my company takes care of. For the duplicate content, some of the pages it says are duplicates don't even seem similar to me. additionally, a lot of them are static pages we embed images of size charts that we use as popups on item pages. it says these issues are high priority but how bad is this? Is this just an issue because if a page has similar content the engine spider won't know which one to index? also, what is the best way to handle these urls bringing back 404 errors? I should probably have a developer look at these issues but I wanted to ask the extremely knowledgeable Moz community before I do 🙂
Technical SEO | | AliMac260 -
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 -
404 errors
Hi I am getting these show up in WMT crawl error any help would be very much appreciated | ?escaped_fragment=Meditation-find-peace-within/csso/55991bd90cf2efdf74ec3f60 | 404 | 12/5/15 |
Technical SEO | | ReSEOlve
| | 2 | mobile/?escaped_fragment= | 404 | 10/26/15 |
| | 3 | ?escaped_fragment=Tips-for-a-balanced-lifestyle/csso/1 | 404 | 12/1/15 |
| | 4 | ?escaped_fragment=My-favorite-yoga-spot/csso/5598e2130cf2585ebcde3b9a | 404 | 12/1/15 |
| | 5 | ?escaped_fragment=blog/c19s6 | 404 | 11/29/15 |
| | 6 | ?escaped_fragment=blog/c19s6/Tag/yoga | 404 | 11/30/15 |
| | 7 | ?escaped_fragment=Inhale-exhale-and-once-again/csso/2 | 404 | 11/27/15 |
| | 8 | ?escaped_fragment=classes/covl | 404 | 10/29/15 |
| | 9 | m/?escaped_fragment= | 404 | 10/26/15 |
| | 10 | ?escaped_fragment=blog/c19s6/Page/1 | 404 | 11/30/15 | | |0 -
Why is Google Webmaster Tools showing 404 Page Not Found Errors for web pages that don't have anything to do with my site?
I am currently working on a small site with approx 50 web pages. In the crawl error section in WMT Google has highlighted over 10,000 page not found errors for pages that have nothing to do with my site. Anyone come across this before?
Technical SEO | | Pete40 -
Mass 404 Checker?
Hi all, I'm currently looking after a collection of old newspaper sites that have had various developments during their time. The problem is there are so many 404 pages all over the place and the sites are bleeding link juice everywhere so I'm looking for a tool where I can check a lot of URLs at once. For example from an OSE report I have done a random sampling of the target URLs and some of them 404 (eek!) but there are too many to check manually to know which ones are still live and which ones have 404'd or are redirecting. Is there a tool anyone uses for this or a way one of the SEOMoz tools can do this? Also I've asked a few people personally how to check this and they've suggested Xenu, Xenu won't work as it only checks current site navigation. Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | thisisOllie0 -
404 errors on non-existent URLs
Hey guys and gals, First Moz Q&A for me and really looking forward to being part of the community. I hope as my first question this isn't a stupid one but I was just struggling to find any resource that dealt with the issue and am just looking for some general advice. Basically a client has raised a problem with 404 error pages - or the lack thereof- on non-existent URLs on their site; let's say for example: 'greatbeachtowels.com/beach-towels/asdfas' Obviously content never existed on this page so its not like you're saying 'hey, sorry this isn't here anymore'; its more like- 'there was never anything here in the first place'. Currently in this fictitious example typing in 'greatbeachtowels.com/beach-towels/asdfas**'** returns the same content as the 'greatbeachtowels.com/beach-towels' page which I appreciate isn't ideal. What I was wondering is how far do you take this issue- I've seen examples here on the seomoz site where you can edit the URI in a similar manner and it returns the same content as the parent page but with the alternate address. Should 404's be added across all folders on a site in a similar way? How often would this scenario be and issue particularly for internal pages two or three clicks down? I suppose unless someone linked to a page with a misspelled URL... Also would it be worth placing 301 redirects on a small number of common mis-spellings or typos e.g. 'greatbeachtowels.com/beach-towles' to the correct URLs as opposed to just 404s? Many thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | AJ2340