Uninstalled WordPress, now getting 200 errors of 500 response code
-
Hello there,
A little while ago I installed WordPress on the server I use with Bluehost to try out a theme. My business domain name is also the primary account on this server. WordPress was causing some serious issues on the server so I uninstalled it, and now I have over 200 "500 response code" errors according to WebMaster tools. I've included a screenshot of some of them.
Could anyone advise me on what to do about this?
Thanks so much!
-
PM sent with the code (in case you're okay making your own .htaccess file) or a link to a zip file that has a ready-made .htaccess file if you prefer.
Note: This will only work if you use Apache and have htaccess & mod_rewrite enabled... If you're on a linux host, chances this is okay but if in doubt, my contact details are in the PM.
Once done, feel free to email me the list of all error pages if you still have it, I'll paste into Screaming Frog in list mode and check that all the error pages now return 301s for you.
-
Sending you a PM with the file now
-
Just to say I'll be sorting the htaccess for you later this afternoon
I'll ping you a private message on Moz when done and will include my contact details in case you need a hand or run into any problems.
-
Ah! Okay cool. I'm based just outside Bristol - Been to Gatwick a few times... hope it wasn't too stressful!
I'll sort a htaccess file out for you tomorrow, no problems. Might be good to exchange Skype or Twitter details though, in case you run into any issues when adding it, though I'll put a bit of advice into the email I send the htaccess file with, so you should be fine Also, let me know when you've implemented the htaccess and I'll run a quick screaming frog crawl over both your site and the list of error pages, just to make sure all is as it should be
No worries re: returning the favour, just help the next person in line who needs a bit of help that you're able to provide, that's enough
-
Wow Mike, that's very generous of you and I would really love your help. htaccess scares me. I downloaded all the 500 codes into a spreadsheet and was going to try to figure out how to add *disallow to each entry, then try pasting into Webmaster tools htaccess thingy, but I might do more harm than good.
Unfortunately I did a bunch of silly things with sub-domains before I knew about SEO and indexing. I know better now but fixing the error of my ways is a different story. 301 redirects I can do, but 200 of them, one by one, would be painful!
The blog doesn't have any entries at all, I was just playing around with WordPress (I'm a web designer, but not developer).
I'm actually at Gatwick airport right now flying back to Boston!
Let me know if there's anything you need from me, and I hope that I can somehow return the favor one day.
Warmly,
Sarah
-
Personally, if you're 100% that you don't want the Wordpress install, I'd:
- Delete all files in the myblog subfolder, except the .htaccess file
- Edit the .htaccess file (or create a new one if you deleted it)
- 301 Redirect any good posts (had rankings, traffic or links) to a specific, related page on your main site
- Add a redirect rule to 301 all remaining pages to / (main site's homepage)
This may sound odd, but I'd then submit a sitemap with the pages that caused the 500 and 404 errors, aiming to get Google to recrawl the error pages & find the new 301 rules.
If you need a hand with this, I'm busy today but I can make the .htaccess entry for you tomorrow morning *UK time) and ping over to you.
EDIT: I'll be out for the next few hrs, but will keep an eye for a response when I can. If you want to drop me an email, check my Moz profile page, look under 'Mike Gracia's Blog:' and email me at that domain (my email is mike@).
-
Hi Mike,
Thank you for your very helpful response.
I already have a website against my primary domain, and it is not a WordPress site. I only installed WordPress (against a sub-domain on Bluehost) to play with. I used the Mojo WordPress install and uninstall.
There are over 200 "500 response codes" coming up in Webmaster tools so to redirect each one of them individually would be a nightmare.
I just used the "Wild card" redirect in Bluehost in the hopes of redirecting ALL 200 urls at once. Hopefully that's the right way to go about it.
Thank you!
-
If you've uninstalled Wordpress, then all URLs in /myblog (assuming this was your WP install dir, looking at the screenshot) will return 404s.
It's odd that they are returning a 500 (server error) response, though, I'd expect 404 errors. Have you
Have you done-away with your blog entirely? The only thing I can think of is the uninstall of Wordpress didn't go quite right and some files remain. All of the files in the screenie were for the Jetpack plugin, are there other 500 URLs?
- How did you uninstall? Manually?
- Is the directory /myblog still there?
- Is the MySQL database for WP still there? (this wouldn't cause the 500 issue, that'll be file related, still a valid question in case you need to salvage your WP install for a later date!).
301 Redirects
If you have removed the Wordpress site, it's going to be important to 301 redirect (permanently moved) the /myblog (in .htaccess assuming you're using Linus). Otherwise:
- You'll lose any link juice to the blog posts
- Visitors will hit 500 errors (at present) or 404 not found errors (if you fix the 500 error, which I suspect is due to a problematic uninstall)
Recommended Actions (if you don't want a blog):
- Check to see if WP was uninstalled correctly, any remaining files in /myblog
- Check if the MySQL database is still there - if it is, WAIT! Do you have any old WP posts that you want to keep?
- 301 Redirect any decent posts to a relevant new page on your website
- Add a blanket 301 Redirect for all other pages under /myblog (redirect rules can do this, no need for lots of individual 301s!)
Don't You Want a Blog?
A final question Don't you want a blog? Were you using it to publish decent content etc? If so, no reason to ditch Wordpress. If WP is causing issues, must be a problem somewhere (likely a in a theme or plugin file, or a conflict). Wordpress can be a great CMS but the downside is the number of plugins. It's too easy to install lots of theme and run into problems. Same with some cheap or free WP themes too.
If you do want a blog still, perhaps post here with what the problems were? Maybe the community can help get you back on-track with a blog?
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
-
.htaccess code
I've got a .htaccess file set up on a site to redirect specific old pages to specific new pages on a different site: eg Redirect 301 /oldpage.html https://www.newsite.co.uk/newpage.html Redirect 301 /oldpage2.html https://www.newsite.co.uk/folder/ I have two questions: 1. Is that all the file needs? Or does it need any "rewrite engine on" type code? 2. I would also like to include code to "mop up" any other URLs and redirect them to the root, so that /anyotherpage.html redirects to newsite.co.uk Is there a way to do this?
Technical SEO | | abisti20 -
Recommendation for SEO plugin for Wordpress
Dear Moz Community, Could I pick your brains on SEO plugins for WordPress? Our web developer has installed an SEO plugin called Yoast, and I am not quite sure of it's efficiency. The problem we have at the moment is that the Page Title is not updating on Google the way we anticipated. To solve this issue we unchecked forced rewrite under the title options, but this had no effect. For instance our name on Google appears as Man Van London all the time, despite any amendments we make it always has Man Van London at the start of the title. ( website: www.manvanlondon.co.uk) If Yoast is the best SEO plugin for wordpress, is there any solution to fix this issue? Or is anyone familiar with another plugin? Does anyone suggest to not use plugin's at all? Thank you for your time. Looking forward to your wisdom. Monica
Technical SEO | | monicapopa0 -
Wordpress Page vs. Posts
My campaigns are telling me I have some duplicate content. I know the reason but not sure how to correct it. Example site here: Bikers Blog is a "static page" referencing each actual "blog post" I write. This site is somewhat orphaned and about to be reconstituted. I have a number of other sites with a similar problem. I'm not sure how to structure the "page" so it only shows a summary of the blog post on the page not the whole post. Permalinks is set as "/%postname%/" I've posted on Wordpress.org with no answer. Since this is an SEO issue I thought maybe someone with WP experience could chime in. Thanks, Don
Technical SEO | | NicheGuy0 -
Client error 404
I have an 404 error but what does that mean? I go to the site and click on the link to exampleX.com there is no problem. What can it be? The error message http://www.example.com/www.example.com/exampleX.html
Technical SEO | | mato0 -
Will invalid HTML code generated by WordPress affect SEO efforts?
Hi all, I'm new to SEOmoz and SEO in general really. I run a small but well regarded freelance website and graphic design business, and until very recently had an employee who handled the SEO side of things. I'm now looking to step into this role myself and hopefully learn the in's and out's of SEO. I've no doubt there will be much to learn, but the SEOmoz tools and it's community seem excellent and helpful. My question then is basically, if WordPress generated HTML code can have an effect on SEO, when it's reported as invalid by tools such as the W3C HTML validator? I'm used to hand coding the majority of my websites for clients, where creating valid HTML and CSS code is something I can do with relative ease. A new client however wants to use WordPress - for ease of updating the site content themselves. The client does however consider any potential SEO implications to be a very important factor in choosing a hand coded vs. WordPress based website. I am aware that WordPress itself is just a means of generating HTML code, and that to the search engines there is no difference between this and the hand coded websites I usually produce. However if WordPress is generating HTML that is being reported as invalid, would this make the search engines penalise the site? On a second note, will the search engines look negatively on a WordPress site where it is being used as a standard website, and the content may not be updated as frequently, as say, a blog? Thanks for your time, and I look forward to hearing your suggestions.
Technical SEO | | SavilleWolf0 -
Duplicate page error
SEO Moz gives me an duplicate page error as my homepage www.monteverdetours.com is the same as www.monteverdetours.com/index is this actually en error? And is google penalizing me for this?
Technical SEO | | Llanero0 -
Crawl Errors In Webmaster Tools
Hi Guys, Searched the web in an answer to the importance of crawl errors in Webmaster tools but keep coming up with different answers. I have been working on a clients site for the last two months and (just completed one months of link bulding), however seems I have inherited issues I wasn't aware of from the previous guy that did the site. The site is currently at page 6 for the keyphrase 'boiler spares' with a keyword rich domain and a good onpage plan. Over the last couple of weeks he has been as high as page 4, only to be pushed back to page 8 and now settled at page 6. The only issue I can seem to find with the site in webmaster tools is crawl errors here are the stats:- In sitemaps : 123 Not Found : 2,079 Restricted by robots.txt 1 Unreachable: 2 I have read that ecommerce sites can often give off false negatives in terms of crawl errors from Google, however, these not found crawl errors are being linked from pages within the site. How have others solved the issue of crawl errors on ecommerce sites? could this be the reason for the bouncing round in the rankings or is it just a competitive niche and I need to be patient? Kind Regards Neil
Technical SEO | | optimiz10