Google Giving 404 Errors to Working Pages
-
We have a problem that just came up out of the blue with Google, in particular Webmaster Tools & our Merchant Center. We're getting a 404 errors for 1000s of pages in both of these applications, but the pages are working just fine. Our shopping campaigns have been hit hard as many of our top products have been suspended from our merchant feed. Webmaster tools is giving us 1000s of 404 errors to product & category pages alike. But every page returning a 404 error is working. We've contacted Google and they mention that they are not getting a 404 error, but their crawler seems to be. Has anyone ever experienced this? What could be causing this?
Thanks for any input.
-
Hi Paul, what is the status of this issue? Has it been resolved, or not? Would love an update! Thanks ~ Christy
-
Yes, attackers use code injection techniques to hijack search results. They in fact do use some randomization techniques to make it harder to detect. Conducting a security scan using a tool like Sucuri.net could be helpful but manually reviewing your .htaccess and code may be necessary.
-
Thanks jeff-rackaid.com.
The idea of some sort of fowl play did cross our minds. These errors seemed to appear out of the blue without any significant code changes on our side.
We have done a fetch as Googlebot on a number of pages. We had found that the returns have been inconsistent; we would fetch a particular page and get a "Not found" error one minute and then a "complete" result the next minute. I don't think this is a normal activity.
We've also been tracking the traffic of Googlebot to our site and since Thursday (8/14), the hits from GoogleBot have been going down while the hits from an "unknown bot" have been increasing.
-
This could just be a WMT error. I've seen this from time to time. If it persists for more than 24 hours, then you may want to try digging into it further.
Have you tried fetching as Googlebot
In doing server security work, I have seen some hijacking attempts that will send 301 responses to Googlebot. In some cases, these scripts are improperly deployed resulting in 404 errors or 500 errors. So I would first fetch the site as Googlebot.
Then examine your server's access logs for hits from Googlebot. Confirm that it is indeed Googlebot. You can verify Googlebot IP ranges with reverse DNS:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/80553?hl=en
If there's no foul play, then check for any browser-based detections routines. With the increasing use of mobile, I have seen some code fail to handle bots correctly. The behavior is usually an error not a 404. However, many CMS systemincorrectly send 404 errors for a variety of errors and not just true not found status codes.
-
On Aug 16th i got a similar error mydomain.com/page/feed/ is all giving 404 errors I look at the xml and it shows an xml with title tags it has the site name - page not found. but the feed pages is not index in google.
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
-
Approximate costs of keywords in Google AdWords
Just wondering if anyone has any suggestions about how to go about getting some approximate costs for keywords through Google Adwords to assist my SEO efforts. I don't want to open an AdWords account, just looking for costs. If the pricing is too high then the opened account was a waste of time. So if anyone has any resources to find out this information, that would be great! Thanks in advance!
Paid Search Marketing | | MainstreamMktg0 -
Can Google shopping listings affect SEO rankings?
Hello everyone. Here is my question: Until 4 weeks ago we used to have just around 2,000 product/pages on Google shopping of our product pages, then we added over 40,000 more items/pages to it, and our Google natural search rankings dropped on most of our long-tail keywords pointing to the same product pages. Do you think that's just coincidence or could the number of products/pages on Google shopping affect natural search results?
Paid Search Marketing | | fablau0 -
How I can saw Handling Price for Google Shopping Feed
Hello, We have customized product and we charge Handling Charge + Shipping Charge for blow $9.99 price products, other products not have Handling Cost but only Shipping Cost. If I apply Shipping Price from Merchant Center Shipping Table then it is required to mention Shipping Cost + Handling Cost at Shipping attributes? Because we saw total Shipping Cost including with Handling Cost as given below, | Subtotal | £6.99 Super Saver (delivered on or before Fri,Oct 9th 2015)( £7.95 ) + Handling Fee (£3.00): | £10.95 | ** Grand Total£17.94** (Incl. VAT) In this case how I can saw Handling Price ?? Thank you in advance.
Paid Search Marketing | | CommercePundit0 -
Google Remarketing Targeting
I've been thinking lately about employing re-marketing in AdWords, and have been doing some research on it. My findings keep pointing to the fact that you can't target only people who visited your site but didn't convert. I keep thinking this cannot be true because it's simply too ludicrous to be. Why else would you want to use re-marketing? Can someone please either confirm or deny this? Thanks
Paid Search Marketing | | UnderRugSwept0 -
Why are some restricted items showing up on Google Shopping?
Hi there, We sell tactical gear but only "Google Friendly" items in our Google Shopping Product Listing Ads. We don't include anything that goes on a rifle, including rifle scopes. However, we see that companies like ebay and OpticsPlanet can still sell riflescopes: https://www.google.com/#q=Bushnell+3-12x44+Mil+Dot+Tactical+Riflescope&tbm=shop. There's even an article by SearchEngineLand that points this out, too: http://searchengineland.com/google-weapon-listings-shopping-search-126487. So why is it that they can sell them and we can't? What advantage do they have or what have they done?
Paid Search Marketing | | PatriotOutfitters810 -
Ideas on how to track google display network traffic
Does anyone know of a good way to be able to track traffic from Google's display network to a site since this traffic doesn't show up under paid search traffic in Omniture? Thanks! -Margarita
Paid Search Marketing | | MargaritaS0 -
Google Ads not showing
Hello, I am having some trouble with my google adwords. I decided to split my existing campaign into two campaigns, one for customers in the UK and one for the rest of the world. The keywords are the same - only the message is different. i.e. Tractor Parts Free UK shipping on Tractor parts mysite.com/tractor-parts & Tractor Parts Fast shipping to Europe from the UK mysite.com/Tractor-Parts According to Google Adwords my UK campaign has had no impressions and no clicks. However if I search for one of the keywords it appears in the search results with the UK text. Anyone got any ideas?
Paid Search Marketing | | DavidLenehan0