Sitemap issue - Tons of 404 errors
-
We've recreated a client site in a subdirectory (mysite.com/newsite) of his domain and when it was ready to go live, added code to the htaccess file in order to display the revamped website on the main url. These are the directions that were followed to do this: http://codex.wordpress.org/Giving_WordPress_Its_Own_Directory and http://codex.wordpress.org/Moving_WordPress#When_Your_Domain_Name_or_URLs_Change. This has worked perfectly except that we are now receiving a lot of 404 errors am I'm wondering if this isn't the root of our evil.
This is a WordPress self-hosted website and we are actively using the WordPress SEO plugin that creates multiple folders with only 50 links in each. The sitemap_index.xml file tests well in Google Analytics but is pulling a number of links from the subdirectory folder.
I'm wondering if it really is the manner in which we made the site live that is our issue or if there is another problem that I cannot see yet. What is the best way to attack this issue? Any clues?
The site in question is www.atozqualityfencing.com
-
Thanks again for the awesome help. I really appreciate your time and effort!!
-
I don't think it would snowball. It should be the end of the issue, as I think google will have found all of the pages it is going to find. You might have some more popup like tags pages and thing like that, but nothing major. I don't know if your webmaster is letting you see the webmaster tools or not, but it has an error date of when it last detected the error. It should look like this, http://screencast.com/t/5a9lpC6o then you can click on the link and pull this window up, http://screencast.com/t/boyAdXGoOLl From there you can see if the links were internal or external that were triggering the 404 pages. It could very well be that external backlinks were triggering them. If they are internal links, to be safe I would search the source of the pages for the links.
Also, Moz's crawler should pick up the 404 errors and let you know if it is still because of links on the site. The 301 redirects will handle the issue if the links were from the old site, but if the links are because of internal links on the new site that are broken, I would find them and fix them with Moz's crawler or Ravens Crawler.
-
Thank you for your insight Lesley! If we do as you suggest, will that be the end of the issue or could it snowball? Wouldn't you think that if there were changes to the site after Google indexed it the next crawl by Google would correct it? Is there a way to get Google to crawl it immediately? Probably not, huh? lol
-
This one is really difficult to tell what has actually gone wrong. I am thinking there might have been changes to the site once google indexed the site for the first time and the point it is at now. I went to the internet archive and I could not see many of the pages, so I do not really know.
The fix however is to write 301 redirects for all of the pages that are pulling a 404, but there is a page that represents them. It looks like some of the pages might have had a url change and others might have been done away with.
-
Thanks for your reply, Lesley. I am checking with the developer as to which exact steps she took to make the site live from a subdirectory. Some of the 404 pages include:
http://www.atozqualityfencing.com/newsite/feed/
http://www.atozqualityfencing.com/fencing-styles/
http://www.atozqualityfencing.com/fence-materials/conact
http://www.atozqualityfencing.com/newsite/conact/
http://www.atozqualityfencing.com/faq/wood-fencing-gallery
http://www.atozqualityfencing.com/faq/vinyl-fencing-gallery
http://www.atozqualityfencing.com/faq/structures-gallery
http://www.atozqualityfencing.com/faq/horse-fencing-gallery
http://www.atozqualityfencing.com/faq/horse-shelter-gallery
http://www.atozqualityfencing.com/conact
http://www.atozqualityfencing.com/author/aaron-smith/wood-fencing-galleryThere are a total of 210 of them.
What other information can I provide to help get this figured out?
-
It is really hard to tell without seeing the errors. Are the pages at the same address as the previous pages? Did you redirect them? Is there something internally wrong that is hard to tell? It would be easier to diagnose if we could the a list of the 404 pages.
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
-
Would a Search Engine treat a sitemap hosted in the cloud in the same way as if it was simply on /sitemap.htm?
Mainly to allow updates without the need for publishing - would Google interpret any differently? Thanks
Technical SEO | | RichCMF0 -
Image Sitemap
I currently use a program to create our sitemap (xml). It doesn't offer creating an mage sitemaps. Can someone suggest a program that would create an image sitemap? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | Kdruckenbrod0 -
Sitemaps: Good Image And Video Sitemap Generators
Hello, We are trying to update our sitemap. We have currently updated our XML and HTML sitemaps but would like to have an image and video sitemap also. Can anyone recommend a good image and video sitemap generator? Kind regards, | Deeana Radley Web Designer & SEO Assistant Phone: 01702 460047 Email: dee@solopress.com Google+: +DeeanaRadley Twitter: @DeeanaRadley |
Technical SEO | | SolopressPrint0 -
Sitemap as Referrer in Crawl Error Report
I have just downloaded the SEOMoz crawl error report, and I have a number of pages listed which all show FALSE. The only common denominator is the referrer - the sitemap. I can't find anything wrong, should I be worried this is appearing in the error report?
Technical SEO | | ChristinaRadisic0 -
Massive Increase in 404 Errors in GWT
Last June, we transitioned our site to the Magento platform. When we did so, we naturally got an increase in 404 errors for URLs that were not redirected (for a variety of reasons: we hadn't carried the product for years, Google no longer got the same string when it did a "search" on the site, etc.). We knew these would be there and were completely fine with them. We also got many 404s due to the way Magento had implemented their site map (putting in products that were not visible to customers, including all the different file paths to get to a product even though we use a flat structure, etc.). These were frustrating but we did custom work on the site map and let Google resolve those many, many 440s on its own. Sure enough, a few months went by and GWT started to clear out the 404s. All the poor, nonexistent links from the site map and missing links from the old site - they started disappearing from the crawl notices and we slowly went from some 20k 404s to 4k 404s. Still a lot, but we were getting there. Then, in the last 2 weeks, all of those links started showing up again in GWT and reporting as 404s. Now we have 38k 404s (way more than ever reported). I confirmed that these bad links are not showing up in our site map or anything and I'm really not sure how Google found these again. I know, in general, these 404s don't hurt our site. But it just seems so odd. Is there any chance Google bots just randomly crawled a big ol' list of outdated links it hadn't tried for awhile? And does anyone have any advice for clearing them out?
Technical SEO | | Marketing.SCG0 -
.htaccess and error 404
Hi, I permit to contact the community again because you have good and quick answer ! Yesterday, I lost the file .htaccess on my server. Right now, only the home page is working and the other pages give me this message : Not Found The requested URL /freshadmin/user/login/ was not found on this server Could you help me please? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Probikeshop0 -
Noob 101 - Sitemaps
Hi guys, looking for some sitemap help. I'm running two seperate systems so my auto-generated sitemap on the main system has a few holes in it. I'd like to submit this to webmaster anyway, and then plug the holes with missing pages by adding them to 'Fetch as Google'. Does that make sense or will Google ignore one of them? Many thanks, Idiot
Technical SEO | | uSwSEO0 -
WP Blog Errors
My WP blog is adding my email during the crawl, and I am getting 200+ errors for similar to the following; http://www.cisaz.com/blog/2010/10-reasons-why-microsofts-internet-explorer-dominance-is-ending/tony@cisaz.net "tony@cisaz.net" is added to Every post. Any ideas how I fix it? I am using Yoast Plug in. Thanks Guys!
Technical SEO | | smstv0