Page generating incorrect 404 errors

  • fpmortimore

    (@fpmortimore)


    7 years, 4 months ago

    Hi, I wonder if anyone can share a solution to my problem. I’ve recently updated a site and in the process created new pages however despite those new pages being live and in my /page-sitemap.xml, I’m getting this message in Webmaster tools console:

    Googlebot couldn’t crawl this URL because it points to a non-existent page

    A curl check (???) has been performed by a plugin support team and they’ve confirmed that a 404 error exists in the header. But they are not sure why the page is generating a 404 error.

    Can anyone suggest a way of clearing these incorrect 404’s from my pages?

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
  • Jacob Peattie

    (@jakept)

    7 years, 4 months ago

    Can you share a link to one of these pages?

    Thread Starter fpmortimore

    (@fpmortimore)

    7 years, 4 months ago

    Here’s one:

    http://www.bereadytoparent.co.uk/maternity-nurse-courses/

    Thanks

    Jacob Peattie

    (@jakept)

    7 years, 4 months ago

    Hm, this is very strange. I’m not getting a 404 code when I put the site through http://httpstatus.io, but the body does have the class error404, which suggests that WordPress’s body class functions think it’s a 404. I also can’t see the page listed in your sitemap: http://www.bereadytoparent.co.uk/page-sitemap.xml

    Is this page listed when you go to Pages from the Dashboard? Or is it created/managed somewhere else?

    Thread Starter fpmortimore

    (@fpmortimore)

    7 years, 4 months ago

    Hi, thanks for responding. The page is in the site map (3rd from bottom) and it is listed when I go to Pages from the Dashboard. I’m assuming that most of my pages have the same error as Google has only indexed 6 out of 53.

    Do you have any suggestions as to what is causing the strange error?

    Jacob Peattie

    (@jakept)

    7 years, 4 months ago

    So it is. Sorry, must’ve missed it.

    My only suggestion would be to deactivate plugins one by one until the issue resolves itself (if it does), leaving whichever plugin is creating your xml sitemap until last.

    Since waiting for Google to try to crawl them again each time would take a long time, I’d just inspect the page source and keep an eye our for the error404 class on the body. It seems like it correlates with your issue, so would be a good way to tell which plugin is the problem.

    It looks like you’re using a caching plugin. I’d deactivate that first so changes made by deactivating other plugins show up right away (and who knows, it might be the culprit).

    If that doesn’t work, try switching to a different theme and checking the class again.

    • This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by Jacob Peattie.
    Thread Starter fpmortimore

    (@fpmortimore)

    7 years, 4 months ago

    You’ve been very helpful thank you. I’ve may have discovered the plugin that was causing the issue. Would you mind taking a look at that page again and see if the error404 has gone?

    Jacob Peattie

    (@jakept)

    7 years, 4 months ago

    Yep. Gone.

    Let us know if this helps with Google, and what plugin was causing the issue.

    Thread Starter fpmortimore

    (@fpmortimore)

    7 years, 4 months ago

    Oh dear, I asked a plugin support team to run the cURL test again and the page is still returning a 404.

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
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