Spammy 404s: Should I Worry?
-
One of my sites is getting a ton of spammy 404s with porno-like URLs. All of these 404s are linked from other sites that I assume also got hacked, and when I click on them, they are also 404s.
So I'm assuming some spam site is tricking the Googlebot into thinking these URLs exist. But is this going to affect my site & SEO directly?
Is it worth disavowing all of the sites linking to me? Is Google even considering these real links? Did these pages ever actually exist anywhere?
Don't have a hacker-brain whatsoever so I need some enlightening.
I've been told I shouldn't worry but it seems like something I should worry about...Any help is greatly appreciated
(I've updated to the newest Wordpress and Sucuri).
-
The pages definitely don't exist anywhere.
Does this mean I have nothing to worry about?
-
There is a link spam technique out there that is used to hide actual links from the site owners. So, if you are logged into your WordPress site, for example, the links and pages won't appear to be there. But, if you are logged out then the pages will be there, visible to the search engines and the public.
Often those injected spam URLs are hidden using javascript. There's a Chrome plugin called Quick Javascript Switcher that will let you toggle JS on and off. Once it's off, if there are injected URLs on your site, you should be able to see them.
-
The first thing I recommend is to make sure that those are actually 404 errors on your site that the search engines (and regular users) can see. There is a link spam technique out there that is used to hide actual links from the site owners. So, if you are logged into your WordPress site, for example, the links and pages won't appear to be there. But, if you are logged out then the pages will be there, visible to the search engines and the public.
I would look in Google to see if those 404 pages on your site are indexed. Try a site:yourdomain.com search to see if they're indexed. Then, use a crawler to crawl your own website to see if the crawler can find those 404 pages.
Typically, when you see those errors, the site has been hacked and now they've been removed. Or, those pages are on your site but when you go to them they appear to be 404s. I recommend you investigate this further to make sure that the pages or the errors do not exist.
-
As to should you worry, we need more info. Of all the links you show in a tool like ahrefs or Majestic, what percentage are these links?
Can you pm me a sample of one or two of them? I will be happy to tell you what I think once I am clear on what they are. We also do a ton with WP so could probably give you some direction there. I am only saying PM so that you can disclose if you don't want to disclose in public. I am not going to in any way try to sell you on our services and if you wanted service I would refer you as I don't like people hawking through Moz Q&A.
Best -
Hi there
Has this been an ongoing issue and you are seeing more and more 404 links coming in? If so, Google has ways of notifying them on potentially spammy / hacked websites, so you could start there.
If it's something where these links are taking up a good portion of your backlink profile, I would do a quick audit and possibly disavow. This may take a bit of work, so if you're not comfortable, Moz has a great recommended companies list of agencies / consultants that will be more than happy to help.
Let me know if this helps or if you have any more questions! Good luck!
Patrick
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
-
If I change Tags and Categories in Wordpress blog post, will it negatively affect SEO and cause 404s?
Hi, I have belatedly come to the conclusion that I have been using tags and categories when blogging in wordpress incorrectly. The result is that Google seems to prefer to show my archives and tags in search results rather than the post itself. Not good UX. As the site is only a few months old, am I best to learn my lesson and tag and categorize correctly moving forward or Should I go back in to these posts and clean them up & categorize and tag correctly. If I do this, will it cause 404s and hurt my SEO? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | johnyfiveisalive2 -
Is this duplicate content that I should be worried about?
Our product descriptions appear in two places and on one page they appear twice. The best way to illustrate that would be to link you to a search results page that features one product. My duplicate content concern refers to the following, When the customer clicks the product a pop-up is displayed that features the product description (first showing of content) When the customer clicks the 'VIEW PRODUCT' button the product description is shown below the buy buytton (second showing of content), this is to do with the template of the page and is why it is also shown in the pop-up. This product description is then also repeated further down in the tabs (third showing of content). My thoughts are that point 1 doesn't matter as the content isn't being shown from a dedicated URL and it relies on javascript. With regards to point 2, is the fact the same paragraph appears on the page twice a massive issue and a duplicate content problem? Thanks
Technical SEO | | joe-ainswoth0 -
Huge uptick in 404s on new website
I just launched a new website, and I see that the 404s shot up hugely in Google Webmaster Tools right during the launch. We went from Drupal to WordPress, but I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on whether these 404s represent a crisis, or potentially something harmless? There has been no noticeable SEO downtick in terms of keywords or queries during the same period... Thanks for any thoughts. Screenshot-2015-05-19-13.58.55.png
Technical SEO | | yoursearchteam0 -
Are thousands of 404s a problem?
An ecommerce site I work on has around 16,000 URLs that are 404s in Webmaster Tools. The vast majority are for products that are no longer stocked by the site, which is a natural occurrence in ecommerce. But my question is, could these possibly be harming rankings?
Technical SEO | | creativemay1 -
Any need to worry about spammy links in Webmaster Tools from sites that no longer exist?
I own an ecommerce website that had some spammy stuff done on it by an SEO firm through SEOLinkVine a few years ago. I'm working on removing all those links, but some of the sites no longer exist. I'm assuming I don't have to worry about disavowing those in Webmaster Tools? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | CobraJones950 -
Should I worry about these 404's?
Just wondering what the thought was on this. We have a site that lets people generate user profiles and once they delete the profile the page then 404's. I was told there is nothing we can do about those from our developers, but I was wondering if I should worry about these...I don't think they will affect any of our rankings, but you never know so I thought I would ask. Thanks
Technical SEO | | KateGMaker1 -
Disallow: /search/ in robots but soft 404s are still showing in GWT and Google search?
Hi guys, I've already added the following syntax in robots.txt to prevent search engines in crawling dynamic pages produce by my website's search feature: Disallow: /search/. But soft 404s are still showing in Google Webmaster Tools. Do I need to wait(it's been almost a week since I've added the following syntax in my robots.txt)? Thanks, JC
Technical SEO | | esiow20130 -
CGI Parameters: should we worry about duplicate content?
Hi, My question is directed to CGI Parameters. I was able to dig up a bit of content on this but I want to make sure I understand the concept of CGI parameters and how they can affect indexing pages. Here are two pages: No CGI parameter appended to end of the URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/world/asia/13japan.html CGI parameter appended to the end of the URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/world/asia/13japan.html?pagewanted=2&ref=homepage&src=mv Questions: Can we safely say that CGI parameters = URL parameters that append to the end of a URL? Or are they different? And given that you have rel canonical implemented correctly on your pages, search engines will move ahead and index only the URL that is specified in that tag? Thanks in advance for giving your insights. Look forward to your response. Best regards, Jackson
Technical SEO | | jackson_lo0