404s

Moz is picking up 404 pages on my website, however these pages are not showing up on Google Search Console. Is Moz off? Should I run 301s from the pages Moz has picked up to the homepage?

How is moz discovering the 404s? Do you have broken internal links or broken external links?

I fix broken links if that’s the cause of crawlers detecting 404s. If there’s not broken links to fix then 301, as you mentioned.

You can always manually verify those URLs yourself.

To speed things up, I like to use this chrome extension that allows me to open multiple URLs on different tabs on my browser pretty easily...

https://github.com/htrinter/Open-Multiple-URLs
Alternatively, if you´re facing a large number of URLs, you can run them through Screaming Frog. All you need to do is set up SF for "LIST" mode and paste the URLs there and run the crawl.

Lastly, you can now integrate SF with Google Search Console URL Inspection Tools if you want to take this verification process a bit further.

Several options for you.

Cheers and GL!

Zombie Pop said:

How is moz discovering the 404s? Do you have broken internal links or broken external links?

I fix broken links if that’s the cause of crawlers detecting 404s. If there’s not broken links to fix then 301, as you mentioned.

Click to expand...

There are no external backlinks pointed to these pages. Would this make them internal links? Sorry for my cluelessness, I'm a newbie...
Thanks for your help!

Roger Marquez said:

You can always manually verify those URLs yourself.

To speed things up, I like to use this chrome extension that allows me to open multiple URLs on different tabs on my browser pretty easily...

https://github.com/htrinter/Open-Multiple-URLs
Alternatively, if you´re facing a large number of URLs, you can run them through Screaming Frog. All you need to do is set up SF for "LIST" mode and paste the URLs there and run the crawl.

Lastly, you can now integrate SF with Google Search Console URL Inspection Tools if you want to take this verification process a bit further.

Several options for you.

Cheers and GL!

Click to expand...

In terms of verifying these URLs, I would open them up and confirm a 404 error is returned? Is that right? Thank you for your help!!

typingnewbie12 said:

In terms of verifying these URLs, I would open them up and confirm a 404 error is returned? Is that right? Thank you for your help!!

Click to expand...

Correct!

You´re in doubt because you have different results from two SEO tools. Although I would prioritize what GSC says over any other SEO tool, for the sake of getting a piece of mind, I would run a manual verification as I mentioned above.

And honestly, even if we´re talking about an abnormal number of URLs returning 404 according to Moz, exporting a report, copy/pasting those URLs into Screaming Frog, and running a crawl should take me around 10mins.

If there aren´t many URLs, I can just open them up using the chrome extension tool I mentioned above and quickly browse through the URL and check them for myself.

I would ALWAYS verify issues like this before setting up a 301 redirect on a live and active page that Moz falsely labeled as 404.

typingnewbie12 said:

There are no external backlinks pointed to these pages. Would this make them internal links? Sorry for my cluelessness, I'm a newbie...
Thanks for your help!



In terms of verifying these URLs, I would open them up and confirm a 404 error is returned? Is that right? Thank you for your help!!

Click to expand...

Internal links are links you’ve made from one page on your website to another page on your website.

Most of the time 404s are discovered by crawlers by following broken links. A broken link is a link from one page that is linked to a page that doesn’t exist anymore.

I believe screaming frog that has been mentioned already can scan your website for broken links. I use scrapebox for this so sorry if I’m wrong about screaming frog.

It’s good to learn this stuff even if you don’t have any broken links because eventually you will.