Unknown "/" added causing 404 error
-
I have four 404 url redirect errors that I cannot sort out.
It tells me the referring url:
|
www.homedestination.com/calculator-mortgage-resources.html has a "/" on the end.
cannot find:
| www.homedestination.com/calculator-mortgage-resources.html |
I cannot figure out where this referring url is; as it is in the root file without a "/" on the end. Could it be on a page somewhere? All my Dreamweaver page link tests come back ok.
I must be missing something simple and would value help for others who may spot it?
Thanks!
|
-
Dan,
Thanks for the helpful answer.
Sorting through that many pages looking for a stray "/" will take time. Any shortcut ways to find it? I do not get the error in Google crawl checks; I do find it in my deeper seomoz advanced cvs files. Need I try fix it then?
You are right about the canonical tag. For whatever reason I get an error in seomoz that says:
Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical
Moderate fix
<dl>
<dt>Canonical URL</dt>
<dd>"http://www.homedestinantion.com/calculator-mortgage-resources.html"</dd>
<dt>Explanation</dt>
<dd>If the canonical tag is pointing to a different URL, engines will not count this page as the reference resource and thus, it won't have an opportunity to rank. Make sure you're targeting the right page (if this isn't it, you can reset the target above) and then change the canonical tag to reference that URL.</dd>
<dt>Recommendation</dt>
<dd>We check to make sure that IF you use canonical URL tags, it points to the right page. If the canonical tag points to a different URL, engines will not count this page as the reference resource and thus, it won't have an opportunity to rank. If you've not made this page the rel=canonical target, change the reference to this URL. NOTE: For pages not employing canonical URL tags, this factor does not apply.</dd>
</dl>
-
Where are you getting your 404 error report? If from someone other then Google Webmaster Tools, probably not a worry.
That page is not indexed in Google (and if they did index it, they took out the slash, so you don't need to do a redirect.) You probably have a link on your site and someone accidently added the slash in the <a>href link. Just find the bad link on your site and take out the slash. </a>
<a>The only other thing that could be causing this, is a backlink, but opensite explorer does not have back links for that page yet.
The best place to check for 404s that need attention is Google Webmaster Tools.
-Dan
PS - You should really have a canonical tag on your site.</a>
-
My guess would be that it is coming from an external site.
-
Jordan,
Thanks for your response.
Yes. I have done that some months back. My problem is with url redirects that have the "/" on the end. AND all my aspx files - Adobe Business Catalyst does not allow me to use a 301 redirect on them. All that in another subject.
As none of my pages ends in a slash, I don't know where this came from and what to do since the traditional 301 url redirect fails.
-
I am not sure how to go about finding the broken link but if you want a simple fix you could try adding a 301 redirect so that the 404 error won't happen any more. Do you know how to do that?
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
-
I'm struggling to understand (and fix) why I'm getting a 404 error. The URL includes this "%5Bnull%20id=43484%5D" but I cannot find that anywhere in the referring URL. Does anyone know why please? Thanks
Can you help with how to fix this 404 error please? It appears that I have a redirect from one page to the other, although the referring page URL works, but it appears to be linking to another URL with this code at the end of the the URL - %5Bnull%20id=43484%5D that I'm struggling to find and fix. Thanks
Technical SEO | | Nichole.wynter20200 -
What's Worse - 404 errors or a huge .htaccess file
We have changed our site architecture pretty significantly and now have many fewer pages (albeit with more robust content and focused linking). My question is, what should I do about all the 404 errors (keep in mind, I am only finding these in Bing Webmaster tools, not Moz or GWT)? Is it worse to have all those 404 errors (hundreds), or to have a massive htaccess file for pages that are only getting hits by the Bing crawlbot. Any insight would be great. Thanks
Technical SEO | | CleanEdisonInc0 -
Leveraging "Powered by" and link spam
Hi all, For reference: The SaaS guide to leveraging the "Powered By" tactic. My product is an embeddable widget that customers place on their websites (see example referenced in link above). A lot of my customers have great domain authority (big brands, .gov's etc). I would like to use a "Powered By" link on my widgets to create high quality backlinks. My question is: if I have identical link text (on potentially hundreds) of widgets, will this look like link spam to Google? If so, would setting the link text randomly on each widget to one of a few different phrases (to create some variation) avoid this? Hope this makes sense, thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | NoorHammad0 -
Easy Fix for 404 Errors foe Newbie
Hey there, I have two errors at these links that to my knowledge do not exist on my domain according to the MOZ. http://educateathletes.com/post/23804085842/educateathletes-ushl-gm-head-coach-jim http://educateathletes.com/products I'm really not sure what to do. The first is an old Tumblr blog post. The second is a page that was created on my site but the URL title was changed to http://educateathletes.com/enroll Any advice is appreciated to eliminate this. Sean
Technical SEO | | EDUCATEAthletes0 -
Fixing a wordpress 404 error for /feed and /comments/feed?
I have a wordpress site that does not have a blog currently. I'm getting a 404 for /feed and /comments/feed. Anyone know how I can fix?
Technical SEO | | DM50 -
Can name="author" register as a link?
Hi all, We're seeing a very strange result in Google Webmaster tools. In "Links to your site", there is a site which we had nothing to do with (i.e. we didn't design or build it) showing over 1600 links to our site! I've checked the site several times now, and the only reference to us is in the rel="author" tag. Clearly the agency that did their design / SEO have nicked our meta, forgetting to delete or change the author tag!! There are literally no other references to us on this site, there hasn't every been (to our knowledge, at least) and so I'm very puzzled as to why Google thinks there are 1600+ links pointing to us. The only thing I can think of is that Google will recognise name="author" content as a link... seems strange, though. Plus the content="" only contains our company name, not our URL. Can anybody shed any light on this for me? Thanks guys!
Technical SEO | | RiceMedia0 -
Why crawl error "title missing or empty" when there is already "title and meta desciption" in place?
I've been getting 73 "title missing or empty" warnings from SEOMOZ crawl diagnostic. This is weird as I've installed yoast wordpress seo plugin and all posts do have title and meta description. But why the results here.. can anyone explain what's happening? Thanks!! Here are some of the links that are listed with "title missing, empty". Almost all our blog posts were listed there. http://www.gan4hire.com/blog/2011/are-you-here-for-good/ http://www.gan4hire.com/blog/2011/are-you-socially-awkward/ MaeM3.png TLcD8.png
Technical SEO | | JasonDGreat0 -
URL Structure "-" vs "/"? Are there any advantages to one over the other?
An example would be domain.com/keyword/keyword2 vs domain.com/keyword-keyword2 Are there any advantages / disadvantages to one over the other?
Technical SEO | | nicole.healthline0