Moz-Specific 404 Errors Jumped with URLs that don't exist
-
Hello,
I'm going to try and be as specific as possible concerning this weird issue, but I'd rather not say specific info about the site unless you think it's pertinent.
So to summarize, we have a website that's owned by a company that is a division of another company. For reference, we'll say that:
OURSITE.com is owned by COMPANY1 which is owned by AGENCY1
This morning, we got about 7,000 new errors in MOZ only (these errors are not in Search Console) for URLs with the company name or the agency name at the end of the url.
So, let's say one post is: OURSITE.com/the-article/
This morning we have an error in MOZ for URLs
OURSITE.com/the-article/COMPANY1
OURSITE.com/the-article/AGENCY1
x 7000+ articles we have created. Every single post ever created is now an error in MOZ because of these two URL additions that seem to come out of nowhere.
These URLs are not in our Sitemaps, they are not in Google... They simply don't exist and yet MOZ created an an error with them. Unless they exist and I don't see them.
Obviously there's a link to each company and agency site on the site in the about us section, but that's it.
-
Not a problem! It't great that Moz's crawler picked up on this issue as it could have caused some problems over time, if it were allowed to get out of control
-
Just wanted to update quickly. The mistakes in the email links as well as the links to the two company sites proved to be the problem. After recrawling the sites, the 7,000+ errors are gone.
It's interesting because I was about to get very upset with Moz, thinking their bot had caused me half a day of headaches for nothing. Turned out they picked up an error before any other system did that would likely have done a lot of damage given that they were all contact links meant to improve transparency.
Hopefully, we caught and fixed the problem in time. In any case, thanks for your help effectdigital.
-
A more common issue than you might think and strongly likely to be a culprit
-
I've just come up on something....
In an attempt three days ago to be more transparent (it's a news site), we added "send me an email" links to each author's bio as well as links to the Company and the Agency in the footer.
Except these links weren't inserted correctly in the footer, and half the authors didn't get the right links either.
So instead of it being a "mailto" link, it was just the email which when you hovered over was the url of the page with the author email at the end... the same thing that's happening in the errors.
Same for the footer links. They weren't done correctly and sending users to OURSITE.com/AGENCY1 instead of AGENCY1's website. I've made the changes and put in the correct links. I have asked for a recrawl to see if that changes anything.
-
At this point that doesn't really matter the main thing is to analyse the referrer URL to see if there genuinely are any hidden malformed links
-
It is assuredly very weird, we just have to determine if Rogerbot has gone crazy in this Summer heat or if something went wrong with your link architecture somehow
-
Yeah that will tell you to look on the referring URL, to see if you can track down a malformed link to the error URL look in the coding
-
Other update here..
I've checked about 50 of these errors and they all say the same stats about the problem URL page.
307 words, 22 Page Authority.
I don't know if it matters, just putting it out there.
-
True, but it's as if something is creating faux URLs of a current article. Adding company names and emails to the end of the URL... It's very weird.
-
The referring URL in this case is the original url without the added element in the permalink.
So
URL: OURSITE.com/the-article/COMPANY1
Referring URL: OURSITE.com/the-article/
Does that give any more info?
-
No need to freak out though as you say "author@oursite.com" implying they are business emails (not personal emails) so you shouldn't have to worry about a data breach or anything. That is annoying though
-
The ones you want are... URL and Referring URL I believe. "URL" should be the 404 pages, "Referring URL" would be the pages that could potentially be creating your problems
-
UPDATE HERE:
I've just noticed that it is also adding the email of the author to the URL and creating an error with that as well.
So, there are three types of errors per post:
OURSITE.com/the-article/COMPANY1
-
Do you mean downloading the CSV of the issue? I tried that and it gives me the following:
Issue Type,Status,Affected Pages,Issue Grouping Identifier,URL,Referring URL,Redirect Location,Status Code,Page Speed,Title,Meta Description,Page Authority,URL Length,Title Pixel Length,Title Character Count.
Which isn't really useful as it relates to the 404 page.
I'm new to Moz, is there a direct line to an in-house resource that could tell us if it's a Rogerbot issue?
-
If you can export the data from Moz and it contains both a link source (the page the link is on) as well as a link target (the created broken URLs) then you might be able to isolate more easily, if it's you or if it's Rogerbot. If Moz UI doesn't give you that data, you'll have to ask if it's at all possible to get it from a staff member, they will likely pick this up and direct you to email (perfectly normal)
-
Thanks for the feedback. You're right about the 404 part, I should have phrased it differently. As you figured out, I meant that we are getting 404s for URLs that were never intended to exist and that we don't know how/why they are there.
We are investigating part 1, but my hope is that it is part 2.
Thanks again for taking the time to respond.
-
404s are usually for pages that 'don't exist' so that's pretty usual. This is either:
-
somewhere on your site, links are being malformed leading to these duff pages (which may be happening invisibly, unless you look deep into the base / modified source code). Google simply hasn't picked up on the error yet
-
something is wrong with Rogerbot and he's compiling hyperlinks incorrectly, thus running off to thousands of URLs that don't exist
At this juncture it could be either one, I am sure someone from Moz will be able to help you further
-
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
-
Unsolved Why is Moz reporting 308s as 302s?
Got a looooong list of redirect issues in my crawl for a new client, all reported as 302s but as far as I can see they are all 308s... which is perfectly fine, right, or have I missed a memo? They even confirm the 308 status in the moz detail.
Moz Pro | | Algorhythm_jT0 -
Why is MOZ crawl is returning URLs with variable results showing Missing Meta Desc? Example: http://nw-naturals.net/?page_number_0=47
Can you help me dive down into my website guts to find out why the MOZ crawl is returning URLs with variable results? And saying this is missing a description when it's not really a page? Example: http://nw-naturals.net/?page_number_0=47. I've asked MOZ but it's a web development issue so they can't help me with it. Has anyone had an issue with this on their website? Thank you!
Moz Pro | | lewisdesign0 -
Moz can't see my link from an external site
Hi, I'm hoping someone can shed some light on this. I've had a followed link created from http://www.dubaisharks.com/ pointing to my website - http://www.yallarugby.com but in the reports it doesn't show that there is a link coming fro this website. The link has been active for a few months now, but still no record of it. Any ideas?
Moz Pro | | SeoSheikh0 -
Moz metrics
This discussion is strictly theoretical... I won't hold anyone to their answer. If I have 2 websites that are identical in every way and let's say the domain authority for both is 40, and I 301 redirect one site to the other, what would the DA become? Same question for single pages, both with a PA of 40. If I 301 redirect one page to the other, what does the PA become for the remaining page?
Moz Pro | | AMHC0 -
Why my domain authority doesn't update
Hi people I want to know why my new domain "https://reise-visum-australien.org/ "(register in about 2 months later) doesn't have authority? I built many good links for this site whole these 2 months but the domain authority doesn't update
Moz Pro | | vahidafshari450 -
Why is OSE showing no data for this URL?
Hi all, Does anyone have any ideas as to why OSE might not have any data for this URL: http://www.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/product/shure-slx24-sm58-wireless-microphone-system-j3 It is not a new page at all. It's been on the site for years. Is OSE being quirky? Or is there an underlying problem with this page? Thanks in advance for any light you can shed on this, Dana
Moz Pro | | danatanseo0 -
Where does the crawler find the urls?
The SEO Moz crawler has found a number of 500 error pages, and 404s etc which is very useful 🙂 however some of the urls are weird/broken formats we don't recognise and nobody remembers ever using - not weird enough to imply hacking, but something broken in the CMS Is there anyway to find out where the crawler found these urls? I can patch up and redirect the end result as best I can but I would prefer to fix plug the leak thanks 🙂
Moz Pro | | Fammy1 -
Is this an error in SEO Moz Pro Web App?
In the rankings section if I add these two terms to monitor They are both monitored: Fresh fish fresh fish Do search engines give more weight to capitals on some small scale or is this an error in the app? Thanks, Daniel.
Moz Pro | | iSenseWebSolutions0