URL Errors in webmaster tools to pages that don't exist?

[popcreativeltd]

Hello, for sometime now we have URLs showing up in Google webmaster saying these are 404 errors but don't exist on our website.......but also never have?

Heres an example

cosmetic-dentistry/28yearold-southport-dentist-wins-best-young-dentist-award/801530293

The root being this goo.gl/vi4N4F

Really confused about this? We have recently made our website wordpress?

Thanks

Ade

[popcreativeltd]

Ok great, thanks for your advice Linda, have a nice day.!

[Linda-Vassily]

Sometimes people make pages like that as landing pages for PPC or other types of campaigns and then abandon them.

I found one like that on one of my sites once by noticing that a page I did not recognize was getting a lot of search traffic--I ended up integrating it into my structure with a new URL, and 301 redirecting the old URL to that new page.

If you think those might be good pages for you, different from similar pages you might already have, you can update them and do that as well.

If they are not especially useful to you, you could just 301 them to the most similar pages. [Are they getting traffic? I think Google must see something in them, if they are still indexed.] They probably wouldn't do any harm if you just leave them, but I'd take care of them anyway.

[popcreativeltd]

Ok great, thanks Linda, its odd because Google isn't saying where its linked or they are linked from like it normally does.

Did you see this question

would this page http://goo.gl/YoPg0q and this page http://goo.gl/kRq0Pd be classed as ghosting? this wasn't the intention but Ive come across this page whilst doing some site research from along time ago and wondering if it would effect my ranking? Should i put a 301 or do you think its ok to leave?

Thanks, i appreciate your feedback.

[Linda-Vassily]

Sometimes when people link to you, they make a mistake (or even make up pages from what I can tell--I have seen some weird things). In that case, Google will still try to look for it and report back to you that it saw a link to such a page somewhere. [In Webmaster Tools, you will be able to see the referring site.]

What I do in a case like that is ignore it, unless it seems to be from a good site. In that case, I contact the site with a correct link and if I get no reply, I just create a redirect of the link to a relevant page.

[popcreativeltd]

Hi, yes this is what i mean, this is why I'm so confused by it. It has never been a page on the website, we've checked an triple checked this.

[Linda-Vassily]

A 404 is not a redirect, it means not found. So it is probably the case that someone linked to that page when it was up and Google is following that old link and not finding the page.

[popcreativeltd]

Sorry Linda, just re-read when you say 301, its in google webmaster tools that its saying 404 error?

Thanks

[popcreativeltd]

Brilliant, thanks Moz guys, its helpful. One other question as i have you...

would this page http://goo.gl/YoPg0q and this page http://goo.gl/kRq0Pd be classed as ghosting? this wasn't the intention but Ive come across this page whilst doing some site research from along time ago and wondering if it would effect my ranking? Should i put a 301 or do you think its ok to leave? Thanks

[Linda-Vassily]

You mean a 301 redirect? If one of the duplicates is already 301 redirected to the other, like Jaime said, just mark it fixed. [Though if it comes back up, take another look at it, because it means that Google is not seeing the fix you think you made.]

As far as affecting your SEO, duplication can cause the less relevant duplicate to not show up in search but does not cause any penalty as such. [Though make sure your internal linking uses your correct and current URLs.]

[popcreativeltd]

Ok thanks, Oddly in webmaster tools it shows HTML improvements as duplicate title tags:

/clinic_locations.html
/uk-clinics-luton-wolverhampton-locations/

But the .html hasn't been around for ages, maybe 2 years? It has a 404 re-direct. Im wondering 2 things. Should I ignore this and will it be effecting my seo and if so is there any more i can do about it?

Thanks

[SanjidaKazi]

This is likely just a URL from your old website structure that somebody has put a link to somewhere out there on the web (Possibly incorrectly with a typo). I would 301 redirect to the most relevant page you have on the Wordpress site and mark it as Fixed on WMT.