Weird Cigarette URLs showing up in Google Webmaster Tools
-
Hi there,
I'm noticing a bunch of URLs showing up in my google webmaster tools that are all cigarette related (they are appearing as 404s in the crawl error report). They are throwing 404 errors which is why they are listed here...
Anyone have any idea of what this could be? I recently switched from Wordpress to Shopify and these weird URLs just started appearing on my webmaster tools in the last week. Kinda bizarre / a little alarming!
Thanks,
Bianca -
Awesome! Thank you so much for your help. You rock!
-
I would actually just try to mark it as fixed. 404's are not a big deal nowadays. It's just troublesome sometimes because WMT keeps bugging you about it, especially when you have links pointing to those pages.
-
Actually - one quick question. Should I do anything in webmaster tools - mark them as fixed? Or remove the links manually? Or should I just leave the crawl errors there since they are 404s?
-
This I can do! Thank you for your help.
-
Most likely a breach to your wordpress. If it's an old, outdated version, had vulnerable plugins or the server security was brute forced.
http://web.archive.org/web//http://www.batesmillstore.com/
filter with Buy or Cigar
You'll see that it has been there for a while.
Secure your website, server. Check your backlinks for cigarette links and don't worry about those 404's too much.
-
Maybe Ken? Another company had built and hosted the site for the company (my first project coming on board a few months ago was a new website that we'd manage in-house).
So, the odd thing based on what you were saying is that the links are being show to be coming from was: http://batesmillstore.com/shop/cable-weave-throw (which had been returning a 404 before but is not properly mapped to the right product on the new website).
Thoughts?
-
-
Hi,
Shot in the dark here but is is possible your old site was hacked and someone was hosting some pages there without your knowledge? You might not have seen them in WMT because they had little traffic then but now that they're 404s they are front and center.
FYI, my thought process is based on something similar that happened to me. About a year ago in my WMT I found 1000s of links from other sites. It turns out that people had made copies of the layout and graphics of my site and were putting in random text and putting them on in directories on other sites without the owners knowing. I wound up emailing dozens of site owners and had them removed - they had no idea they were there.
Just a thought.
Ken
-
could you post an example of the URLs you are seeing?
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
-
Weird Google indexing issues with www being forced
IM working on a site which is really not indexing as it should, I have created a sitemap.xml which I thought would fix the issue but it hasn't, what seems to be happening is the Google is making www pages canonical for some of the site and without www for the rest. the site should be without www. see images attached for a visual explanation.
Technical SEO | | Donsimong
when adding pages in Google search console without www some pages cannot be indexed as Google thinks the www version is canonical, and I have no idea why, there is no canonical set up at all, what I would do if I could is to add canonical tags to each page to pint to the non www version, but the CMA does not allow for canonical. not quite sure how to proceed, how to tell google that the non www version is in fact correct, I dont have any idea why its assuming www is canonical either??? k11cGAv zOuwMxv0 -
What is the best tool for getting a SiteMap url for a website with over 4k pages?
I have just migrated my website from HUGO to Wordpress and I want to submit the sitemap to Google Search Console (because I haven't done so in a couple years). It looks like there are many tools for getting a sitemap file built. But I think they probably vary in quality. Especially considering the size of my site.
Technical SEO | | DanKellyCockroach2 -
If I'm using a compressed sitemap (sitemap.xml.gz) that's the URL that gets submitted to webmaster tools, correct?
I just want to verify that if a compressed sitemap file is being used, then the URL that gets submitted to Google, Bing, etc and the URL that's used in the robots.txt indicates that it's a compressed file. For example, "sitemap.xml.gz" -- thanks!
Technical SEO | | jgresalfi0 -
Why Google crawl parameter URLs?
Hi SEO Masters, Google is indexing this parameter URLs - 1- xyz.com/f1/f2/page?jewelry_styles=6165-4188-4184-4192-4180-6109-4191-6110&mode=li_23&p=2&filterable_stone_shapes=4114 2- xyz.com/f1/f2/page?jewelry_styles=6165-4188-4184-4192-4180-4169-4195&mode=li_23&p=2&filterable_stone_shapes=4115&filterable_metal_types=4163 I have handled by Google parameter like this - jewelry_styles= Narrows Let Googlebot decide mode= None Representative URL p= Paginates Let Googlebot decide filterable_stone_shapes= Narrows Let Googlebot decide filterable_metal_types= Narrows Let Googlebot decide and Canonical for both pages - xyz.com/f1/f2/page?p=2 So can you suggest me why Google indexed all related pages with this - xyz.com/f1/f2/page?p=2 But I have no issue with first page - xyz.com/f1/f2/page (with any parameter). Cononical of first page is working perfectly. Thanks
Technical SEO | | Rajesh.Prajapati
Rajesh0 -
Should I resubmit a 301 redirected domain in Webmaster Tools
We recently switched over a .com site to a new server. The .com site had a .co.uk domain redirecting to it previously, but when the switchover happened, the .co.uk was forgotten about. We have now realised what has happened, but not before taking a hit with our rankings. The .co.uk is still indexed in Google and now that we have sorted the redirects they are pointing to the right places. My question now; is there anything further I need to do? I know that the .co.uk will soon be removed from the SERPs, but I just want to make sure I haven't forgotten anything.
Technical SEO | | Ben_Malkin_Develo0 -
Verify all versions of site in Bing Webmaster Tools
Hello, We recently migrated our site to a new shopping cart, https, and from www to non-www, and it's been a rough transition. We've lost a lost of traffic particularly in Bing. All the versions of our site are verified Google WMT, sitemaps are submitted correctly, etc. Unfortunately, this was not done for Bing. Currently only the new version of our site (https, non-www) is verified in Bing WMT. Do we have to verify all versions of our site in Bing, the way they are in Google WMT? Also, now that it's been a few months since the switch, should we still submit a site move to Bing WMT or is it too late? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | whiteonlySEO0 -
Webmaster Tools Verification Problem
Hello, Somehow a website I'm working on has lost it's verification in Webmaster Tools. I have absolutely no clue why... The Google Analytics code is still working, the verification meta tag is in place, both are not working. I get an error message about Google not being able to connect to the server. I asked about any possible changes to server settings or stuff about that, but apparently nothing has changed there. The URL in question is Bivolino.com Does someone has any other ideas what I could be looking for. Thanks, Kind regards, Erik
Technical SEO | | buiserik0 -
Schema Markup and Google's Rich Snippet Tool
Has anyone ever used the snippet tool and gotten the following error "could not fetch website"? When using the tool and placing an url that does not have markup present it will show that as the error. Or if part of markup is wrong, it will diagnose it accordingly. Did a search online and found limited info...one of which someone had this error but when other users tested it, they were not getting the same error.
Technical SEO | | andrewv0