undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • MozCon
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Digital Marketers
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
    Moz Pro

    Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

    Try it free!
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Digital Marketers

      Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Technical SEO
  4. Why is Google Webmaster Tools showing 404 Page Not Found Errors for web pages that don't have anything to do with my site?

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

Why is Google Webmaster Tools showing 404 Page Not Found Errors for web pages that don't have anything to do with my site?

Technical SEO
5
6
2.1k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • Pete4
    Pete4 last edited by Jan 12, 2015, 12:58 PM

    I am currently working on a small site with approx 50 web pages.  In the crawl error section in WMT Google has highlighted over 10,000 page not found errors for pages that have nothing to do with my site.  Anyone come across this before?

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • MonicaOConnor
      MonicaOConnor @Pete4 last edited by Feb 10, 2015, 1:44 PM Feb 10, 2015, 1:44 PM

      These extensions look like they are attachments. Go into GWT, click on the 404 link, then a box with pop up, click on the  "Linked From" tab.. Go to the page and Ctrl U to see the source code. Do a CTRL F and search for the broken link. When you find it in your source code you should be able to figure out what's triggering that response. If you can't find the URLs in your source code, mark them as fixed and it should take care of the problem. Especially if they are older. It looks like it could be a shipment status, a product out of stock message, and a PDF of train schedules.

      I would check the linked from pages and make sure that there isn't some erroneous code that is creating a page when it doesn't need to.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • topic:timeago_earlier,18 days
      • paints-n-design
        paints-n-design last edited by Jan 23, 2015, 9:29 AM Jan 23, 2015, 9:29 AM

        I think you could have is the following problem:

        You got a Domain wich earned Links bevore and these Links are still out there. Google can see them and you will again and again see them in WMT. 
        You cant just say solved and than they are gone, caused by the backlinks. They come again. 
        Check that in WMT - I dont know how it is called in english versions (I just see the german), you can click on the 404 and than take a look at "what is linking to that page"
        An easy solution in that case may be to disallow "/fs" for bots. (if you dont use fs in your url structure)

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • topic:timeago_earlier,10 days
        • Pete4
          Pete4 @JVRudnick last edited by Jan 13, 2015, 1:02 PM Jan 13, 2015, 1:02 PM

          The 404s start with the correct url for the site but are then suffixed after the forward slash with urls such as;

          fs/201410/a_Royal_Mail_Item_Is_Currently_Being_Processed_For_Delivery_.html

          /fs/201410/a_When_will_John_lewis_restock_the_Dr_Dre_beats_solo_hd_.html

          fs/201410/a_Food_stalls_at_train_stations_in_London_.html

          There are 10,000+ of these in my WMT account.  I have never seen this before - any ideas?

          MonicaOConnor 1 Reply Last reply Feb 10, 2015, 1:44 PM Reply Quote 0
          • JVRudnick
            JVRudnick last edited by Jan 12, 2015, 3:17 PM Jan 12, 2015, 3:17 PM

            Need more data to help, eh!

            Pete4 1 Reply Last reply Jan 13, 2015, 1:02 PM Reply Quote 0
            • Hutch42
              Hutch42 last edited by Jan 12, 2015, 1:28 PM Jan 12, 2015, 1:28 PM

              What do you mean "pages that have nothing to do with my site" are these not on your domain or are they on your domain but you are not familiar with them?

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • 1 / 1
              1 out of 6
              • First post
                1/6
                Last post

              Got a burning SEO question?

              Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


              Start my free trial


              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.

              • See all categories

              Related Questions

              • Chophel

                My WP website got attack by malware & now my website site:www.example.ca shows about 43000 indexed page in google.

                Hi All My wordpress website got attack by malware last week. It affected my index page in google badly. my typical site:example.ca shows about 130 indexed pages on google. Now it shows about 43000 indexed pages.  I had my server company tech support scan my site and clean the malware yesterday. But it still shows the same number of indexed page on google. Does anybody had ever experience such situation and how did you fixed it. Looking for help. Thanks FILE HIT LIST:
                {YARA}Spam_PHP_WPVCD_ContentInjection : /home/example/public_html/wp-includes/wp-tmp.php
                {YARA}Backdoor_PHP_WPVCD_Deployer : /home/example/public_html/wp-includes/wp-vcd.php
                {YARA}Backdoor_PHP_WPVCD_Deployer : /home/example/public_html/wp-content/themes/oceanwp.zip
                {YARA}webshell_webshell_cnseay02_1 : /home/example2/public_html/content.php
                {YARA}eval_post : /home/example2/public_html/wp-includes/63292236.php
                {YARA}webshell_webshell_cnseay02_1 : /home/example3/public_html/content.php
                {YARA}eval_post : /home/example4/public_html/wp-admin/28855846.php
                {HEX}php.generic.malware.442 : /home/example5/public_html/wp-22.php
                {HEX}php.generic.cav7.421 : /home/example5/public_html/SEUN.php
                {HEX}php.generic.malware.442 : /home/example5/public_html/Webhook.php

                Technical SEO | Jan 11, 2021, 4:43 PM | Chophel
                0
              • A_Fotografy

                Yoast SEO. After set up 404 error pages

                Hello all, Something strange happened with my blog site. I recently signed to MOZ tools. Initially everything was fine, but during my last crawl I got loads of 404
                pages. Few days ago I was tweaking some settings in SEO plugin according to this post https://moz.com/blog/setup-wordpress-for-seo-success What I noticed was that 404 pages were coming from my blog posts, but for
                some reason category was missing in those posts. For example this link is 404
                https://a-fotografy.co.uk/inchcolm-island-wedding-photography-bailie The one with category is https://a-fotografy.co.uk/wedding-pictures/inchcolm-island-wedding-photography-bailie/ So basically for some reason category was missing. Please let me know how can I fix this instead of doing hundreds of
                redirects now. Thank you,
                Regards,
                Armands

                Technical SEO | Feb 14, 2016, 3:53 PM | A_Fotografy
                0
              • fslocal

                Why is Google's cache preview showing different version of webpage (i.e. not displaying content)

                My URL is: http://www.fslocal.comRecently, we discovered Google's cached snapshots of our business listings look different from what's displayed to users. The main issue? Our content isn't displayed in cached results (although while the content isn't visible on the front-end of cached pages, the text can be found when you view the page source of that cached result).These listings are structured so everything is coded and contained within 1 page (e.g. http://www.fslocal.com/toronto/auto-vault-canada/). But even though the URL stays the same, we've created separate "pages" of content (e.g. "About," "Additional Info," "Contact," etc.) for each listing, and only 1 "page" of content will ever be displayed to the user at a time. This is controlled by JavaScript and using display:none in CSS. Why do our cached results look different? Why would our content not show up in Google's cache preview, even though the text can be found in the page source? Does it have to do with the way we're using display:none? Are there negative SEO effects with regards to how we're using it (i.e. we're employing it strictly for aesthetics, but is it possible Google thinks we're trying to hide text)? Google's Technical Guidelines recommends against using "fancy features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Flash." If we were to separate those business listing "pages" into actual separate URLs (e.g. http://www.fslocal.com/toronto/auto-vault-canada/contact/ would be the "Contact" page), and employ static HTML code instead of complicated JavaScript, would that solve the problem? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.Thanks!

                Technical SEO | Nov 4, 2013, 9:33 PM | fslocal
                0
              • BestRide

                How to create site map for large site (ecommerce type) that has 1000's if not 100,000 of pages.

                I know this is kind of a newbie question but I am having an amazing amount of trouble creating a sitemap for our site Bestride.com.  We just did a complete redesign (look and feel, functionality, the works) and now I am trying to create a site map.  Most of the generators I have used "break" after reaching some number of pages.  I am at a loss as to how to create the sitemap.  Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

                Technical SEO | Aug 12, 2013, 2:07 AM | BestRide
                0
              • GregDixson

                Google Showing Multiple Listings For Same Site?

                I've been optimizing a small static HTML site and have been working to increase the keyword rankings, yet have always ranked #1 for the company name. But, I've now noticed the company name is taking more than just the first position - the site is now appearing in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd position (each position referencing a different page of the site). Great.. who doesn't want to dominate a page of Google! ..But it looks kind of untidy and not usually how links from the same site are displayed. Is this normal? I'm used to seeing results from the same site grouped under the primary result, but not like this. any info appreciated 🙂

                Technical SEO | Oct 28, 2012, 10:50 AM | GregDixson
                0
              • BenRWoodard

                Javascript to manipulate Google's bounce rate and time on site?

                I was referred to this "awesome" solution to high bounce rates. It is suppose to "fix" bounce rates and lower them through this simple script.  When the bounce rate goes way down then rankings dramatically increase (interesting study but not my question). I don't know javascript but simply adding a script to the footer and watch everything fall into place seems a bit iffy to me. Can someone with experience in JS help me by explaining what this script does? I think it manipulates the reporting it does to GA but I'm not sure.  It was supposed to be placed in the footer of the page and then sit back and watch the dollars fly in. 🙂

                Technical SEO | Jun 27, 2012, 4:55 PM | BenRWoodard
                1
              • Techboy

                Why are old versions of images still showing for my site in Google Image Search?

                I have a number of images on my website with a watermark. We changed the watermark (on all of our images) in May, but when I search for my site getmecooking in Google Image Search, it still shows the old watermark (the old one is grey, the new one is orange). Is Google not updating the images its search results because they are cached in Google? Or because it is ignoring my images, having downloaded them once? Should we be giving our images a version number (at the end of the file name)? Our website cache is set to 7 days, so that's not the issue. Thanks.

                Technical SEO | Sep 6, 2011, 8:02 PM | Techboy
                0
              • Technical_Contact

                Do or don't —forward a parked domain to a live website?

                Hi all, I'm new to SEO and excited to see the launch of this forum. I've searched for an answer to this question but haven't been able to find out. I  "attended" two webinars recently regarding SEO. The above subject was raised in each one and the speakers gave a polar opposite recommendations. So I'm completely at a loss as to what to do with some domains that are related to a domain used on a live website that I'm working to improve the SEO on. The scenario: Live website at (fictitious) www.digital-slr-camera-company.com. I also have 2 related domain names which are parked with the registrar: www.dslr.com, www.digitalslr.com. The question: Is there any SEO benefit to be gained by pointing the two parked domains to the website at www.digitalcamercompany.com? If so, what method of "pointing" should be used? Thanks to any and all input.

                Technical SEO | Mar 1, 2011, 5:03 PM | Technical_Contact
                0

              Get started with Moz Pro!

              Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

              Start my free trial
              Products
              • Moz Pro
              • Moz Local
              • Moz API
              • Moz Data
              • STAT
              • Product Updates
              Moz Solutions
              • SMB Solutions
              • Agency Solutions
              • Enterprise Solutions
              • Digital Marketers
              Free SEO Tools
              • Domain Authority Checker
              • Link Explorer
              • Keyword Explorer
              • Competitive Research
              • Brand Authority Checker
              • Local Citation Checker
              • MozBar Extension
              • MozCast
              Resources
              • Blog
              • SEO Learning Center
              • Help Hub
              • Beginner's Guide to SEO
              • How-to Guides
              • Moz Academy
              • API Docs
              About Moz
              • About
              • Team
              • Careers
              • Contact
              Why Moz
              • Case Studies
              • Testimonials
              Get Involved
              • Become an Affiliate
              • MozCon
              • Webinars
              • Practical Marketer Series
              • MozPod
              Connect with us

              Contact the Help team

              Join our newsletter
              Moz logo
              © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
              • Accessibility
              • Terms of Use
              • Privacy

              Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.