Google Webmaster finding url with redirects

Google Webmaster finding url with redirects - If a page has internal and external outgoing links to redirecting URLs, it’s returning 3xx (301, 302, etc.) HTTP status codes standing for redirection. This issue means that the page does not exist on a permanent or temporary basis. It appears on most of the popular web browsers, usually caused by a misconfigured website. However, there are some steps you can take to ensure the issue isn’t on your side. You can find more details about redirecting URLs by reading the Google Search Central overview. In this article, we’ll go over how you can fix the Google Webmaster finding url with redirects error on your web browser. Problem :

I have been scratching my head about this for months, we have about 100 Not found links with 404 response codes.

The response code is correct as these pages do no exist anymore, however the thing that is confusing when i look to see which pages they are linked from they are calling from page which do not exist and have redirects on them or from the site map.

For example if the page "/red-boots" had a response code of 404. I check where it is linking from and it says /boots/shoes" and the sitemap.

When i check the url "/boots/shoes", it has a redirect to "/shoes" however google isnt seeing that redirect it is just finding the old links on "/boots/shoes".

I have regenerate a sitemap and that hasn't helped, i marked them all as fixed and within 2 days they were all back. So if somebody could shine a bit of light on why google is looking at unpublished pages and not following the redirects that would be brilliant.

Solution :

There are two types of redirects :

1) 301 : permanent redirect -> If you have added this, then google will know that you have permanently moved this page and will store this in its index.

2) 302 : temporary redirect -> This will not let crawler index the redirection permanently.

Firstly make sure that the redirection is 301 permanent redirect. Also google takes some time(may be a week or even a month) to reflect these redirection changes. These outdated links/old behavior on pages will continue to exist for sometime and then eventually will leave the index.

Also if some of your pages are permanently discontinued, then its better to throw HTTP code 410 to let crawler know that you have removed this page from site and hence crawler should also remove it from index. In case of 404 it continues to hit that page as it see it like a temporary issue on site.

Do check the sources from where the old pages are still linked. It might be the case that you have updated the sitemap, but some of the old pages which you have not removed continue to have old links and hence crawler reach them. If you are using webmaster tool it will show you all details in linked from tab in errors section.

I've seen this on several sites which have been around for a while. Links and URLs change over time, but Google doesn't tend to forget them. Sometimes the "Linked from" URL has been gone for years but Google still flags these up from time to time, probably just to make sure you don't miss anything.

As @abhinsit mentions, you can use a 410 header on anything that is absolutely gone for good. Google may still come back to check in future, but generally these are probably safe to ignore.

We hope that this article has helped you resolve the google-search-console, redirects, 404 error in your web browsers. Enjoy browsing the internet uninterrupted!