• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        4. Generating 404 Errors but the Pages Exist

        Moz Q&A is closed.

        After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

        Generating 404 Errors but the Pages Exist

        Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        6
        15
        9867
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • Found
          Found last edited by

          Hey

          I have recently come across an issue with several of a sites urls being seen as a 404 by bots such as Xenu, SEOMoz, Google Web Tools etc. The funny thing is, the pages exist and display fine.

          This happens on many of the pages which use the Modx CMS, but the index is fine. The wordpress blog in /blog/ all works fine.

          The only thing I can think of is that I have a conflict in the htaccess, but troubleshooting this is difficult, any tool I have found online seem useless.

          Have tried to rollback to previous versions but still does not work.

          Anyone had any experience of similar issues?

          Many thanks

          K.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • OptimaD
            OptimaD @RyanKent last edited by

            FYI, we finally found our error. The short URL turned out to be the same name as the folder (photo-gallery) so once this was changed, wordpress was able to access the correct path. A bit of custom javascript had to be amended as well, but that was limited to our custom code. Using your web-sniffer.net link we were able to test immediately and fix it fairly quickly. Thank you for your help!

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • seo-wanna-bs
              seo-wanna-bs @RyanKent last edited by

              That's true Ryan I guess it is coding related really.

              Issues like this are a real pain in the ass. And most people don't even check WMT to realise the issues exist. TBH, I don't check as often as I should.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • RyanKent
                RyanKent @seo-wanna-bs last edited by

                I agree with you Paul.

                As you pointed out one possible cause is a CMS-related issue which I would refer to as "coding" meaning something in the code which was used to present the website. Perhaps there is a better way to phrase it but nothing comes to mind at the moment.

                Another possibility you mentioned is Litespeed which would be a server-side issue directly. Either way, it is a legitimate issue which should be addressed.

                seo-wanna-bs 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • seo-wanna-bs
                  seo-wanna-bs last edited by

                  FWIW, I don't think it's a coding issue. If it were coding, it would either show a 200OK or it would show a 404. It wouldn't sometimes serve a 404.

                  If you're using Litespeed, I'd guarantee that is the issue and if you're using Joomla, it's another prime culprit.

                  RyanKent 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • seo-wanna-bs
                    seo-wanna-bs last edited by

                    Please keep in mind, that 404 error does not mean the page doesn't exist. It means your server, is sending a response code to indicate that it doesn't exist.

                    When I installed Litespeed on my server, this issue happened over and over again.

                    I believe Joomla for example, has some kind of security module that serves a 404 if a single IP requests a page too many times. I remember running SEOFrog on a friends Joomla site and tons of 404's were showing up.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • Found
                      Found @RyanKent last edited by

                      Dev team are looking into it, must be quite a complex htaccess issue. Will get to the bottom of it this week and post any findings.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • OptimaD
                        OptimaD @RyanKent last edited by

                        Thanks Ryan! I will get it looked at...Sue

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • RyanKent
                          RyanKent @OptimaD last edited by

                          @DentalID, the same reply I offered to Guy applies for you as well. This is an SEO issue which does need to be fixed. Something on your end is causing the page to show with a 403 response code. You really need a programmer to get in there and determine the root cause of the issue. You could try asking your web host if you have managed hosting, but this level of assistance would normally be outside the support of managed hosting.

                          OptimaD Found 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • RyanKent
                            RyanKent last edited by

                            Guy,

                            In looking at the page this appears to be a legitimate problem. Your server settings allow you to present a page with any header code you wish. You can 301 a page but still present the page with a 200 code if you want. Presently it appears the page is being presented fine but your server is offering a 404 header code.

                            I can't tell the actual source of the problem other then to say it appears to be on your end and should be fixed. I originally looked at the code with the MOZbar but then checked independently with another tool as well. http://web-sniffer.net/

                            All tools show a 404 header code for the page. This response code is generated by your web server.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                            • OptimaD
                              OptimaD last edited by

                              We are having a similar problem with this URL:  http://dentalimplantsportland.com/photo-gallery/  and also the following locations:

                              http://cosmeticdentistportland.net/photo-gallery/

                              http://dentalveneersportland.com/photo-gallery/

                              SEO Moz  and Google webmaster tools show it as a 403 error but the pages display fine. I am not able to tell if this is really a problem for SEO or if we should reconstruct this gallery system and would really love your input.

                              This is Wordpress with a Spry gallery...

                              Thanks so much!

                              RyanKent 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • Found
                                Found @RyanKent last edited by

                                It is just a small affiliate site I am looking at - this page creates a 404.

                                http://www.insure-uk.com/post-office-car-insurance.html

                                Currently testing on some beta servers. Hopefully should fix soon as otherwise it will lose indexation.

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • AlanMosley
                                  AlanMosley last edited by

                                  I also see this now and again, but next crawl they fix themselfs. i assume robots can not always reach page for a number of reasons

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • RyanKent
                                    RyanKent last edited by

                                    Can you offer an example of a URL which is causing this problem?

                                    Found 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • Netboost
                                      Netboost last edited by

                                      I have had the same issues, I think it is often the bot's problem

                                      Just to be certain check your links are correct and manually test them. Also ensure your sitemap is up to date and that you are not blocking the crawlers with metarobots, robots.txt, or some weird stuff in htaccess.

                                      I have found that renaming pages or moving them will often cause 404 issues with crawlers

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • 1 / 1
                                      • First post
                                        Last post

                                      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.

                                      • See all categories

                                      Related Questions

                                      • amag

                                        Would You Redirect a Page if the Parent Page was Redirected?

                                        Hi everyone! Let's use this as an example URL: https://www.example.com/marvel/avengers/hulk/ We have done a 301 redirect for the "Avengers" page to another page on the site. Sibling pages of the "Hulk" page live off "marvel" now (ex: /marvel/thor/ and /marvel/iron-man/). Is there any benefit in doing a 301 for the "Hulk" page to live at /marvel/hulk/ like it's sibling pages? Is there any harm long-term in leaving the "Hulk" page under a permanently redirected page? Thank you! Matt

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | amag
                                        0
                                      • vtmoz

                                        What are best page titles for sub-domain pages?

                                        Hi Moz communtity, Let's say a website has multiple sub-domains with hundreds and thousands of pages. Generally we will be mentioning "primary keyword & "brand name" on every page of website. Can we do same on all pages of sub-domains to increase the authority of website for this primary keyword in Google? Or it gonna end up as negative impact if Google consider as duplicate content being mentioned same keyword and brand name on every page even on website and all pages of sub domains? Thanks

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz
                                        0
                                      • Inevo

                                        Thousands of 503 errors in GSC for pages not important to organic search - Is this a problem?

                                        Hi, folks A client of mine now has roughly 30 000 503-errors (found in the crawl error section of GSC). This is mostly pages with limited offers and deals. The 503 error seems to occur when the offers expire, and when the page is of no use anymore. These pages are not important for organic search, but gets traffic from direct and newsletters, mostly. My question:
                                        Does having a high number of 503 pages reported in GSC constitute a problem in terms of organic ranking for the domain and the category and product pages (the pages that I want to rank for organically)? If it does, what is the best course of action to mitigate the problem? Looking excitingly forward to your answers to this 🙂 Sigurd

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Inevo
                                        0
                                      • BeckyKey

                                        Too many on page links

                                        Hi I know previously it was recommended to stick to under 100 links on the page, but I've run a crawl and mine are over this now with 130+ How important is this now? I've read a few articles to say it's not as crucial as before. Thanks!

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey
                                        1
                                      • abhihan

                                        Google indexing only 1 page out of 2 similar pages made for different cities

                                        We have created two category pages, in which we are showing products which could be delivered in separate cities. Both pages are related to cake delivery in that city. But out of these two category pages only 1 got indexed in google and other has not. Its been around 1 month but still only Bangalore category page got indexed. We have submitted sitemap and google is not giving any crawl error. We have also submitted for indexing from "Fetch as google" option in webmasters. www.winni.in/c/4/cakes (Indexed - Bangalore page - http://www.winni.in/sitemap/sitemap_blr_cakes.xml) 2. http://www.winni.in/hyderabad/cakes/c/4 (Not indexed - Hyderabad page - http://www.winni.in/sitemap/sitemap_hyd_cakes.xml) I tried searching for "hyderabad site:www.winni.in" in google but there also http://www.winni.in/hyderabad/cakes/c/4 this link is not coming, instead of this only www.winni.in/c/4/cakes is coming. Can anyone please let me know what could be the possible issue with this?

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | abhihan
                                        0
                                      • friendoffood

                                        What if page exists for desktop but not mobile?

                                        I have a domain (no subdomains) that serves up different dynamic content for mobile/desktop pages--each having the exact same page url, kind of a semi responsive design, and will be using "Vary: User-Agent" to give Google a heads up on this setup. However, some of the pages are only valid for mobile or only valid for desktop.  In the case of when a page is valid only for mobile (call it mysite.com/mobile-page-only ), Google Webmaster Tools is giving me a soft 404 error under Desktop, saying that the page does not exist, Apparently it is doing that because my program is actually redirecting the user/crawler to the home page.  It appears from the info about soft 404 errors that Google is saying since it "doesn't exist" I should give the user a 404 page--which I can make it customized and give the user an option to go to the home page, or choose links from a menu, etc.. My concern is that if I tell the desktop bot that mysite.com/mobile-page-only basically is a 404 error (ie doesn't exist), that it could mess up the mobile bot indexing for that page--since it definitely DOES exist for mobile users.. Does anyone here know for sure that Google will index a page for mobile that is a 404 not found for desktop and vice versa?  Obviously it is important to not remove something from an index in which it belongs, so whether Google is careful to differential the two is a very important issue.  Has anybody here dealt with this or seen anything from Google that addresses it?  Might one be better off leaving it as a soft 404 error? EDIT: also, what about Bing and Yahoo?  Can we assume they will handle it the same way? EDIT: closely related question--in a case like mine does Google need a separate sitemap for the valid mobile pages and valid desktop pages even though most links will be in both?  I can't tell from reading several q&a on this. Thanks, Ted

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | friendoffood
                                        0
                                      • garrettkite

                                        Images Returning 404 Error Codes. 301 Redirects?

                                        We're working with a site that has gone through a lot of changes over the years - ownership, complete site redesigns, different platforms, etc. - and we are finding that there are both a lot of pages and individual images that are returning 404 error codes in the Moz crawls. We're doing 301 redirects for the pages, but what would the best course of action be for the images? The images obviously don't exist on the site anymore and are therefore returning the 404 error codes. Should we do a 301 redirect to another similar image that is on the site now or redirect the images to an actual page? Or is there another solution that I'm not considering (besides doing nothing)? We'll go through the site to make sure that there aren't any pages within the site that are still linking to those images, which is probably where the 404 errors are coming from. Based on feedback below it sounds like once we do that, leaving them alone is a good option.

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | garrettkite
                                        0
                                      • nicole.healthline

                                        Soft 404's from pages blocked by robots.txt -- cause for concern?

                                        We're seeing soft 404 errors appear in our google webmaster tools section on pages that are blocked by robots.txt (our search result pages). Should we be concerned? Is there anything we can do about this?

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline
                                        4

                                      Get started with Moz Pro!

                                      Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                                      Start my free trial
                                      Products
                                      • Moz Pro
                                      • Moz Local
                                      • Moz API
                                      • Moz Data
                                      • STAT
                                      • Product Updates
                                      Moz Solutions
                                      • SMB Solutions
                                      • Agency Solutions
                                      • Enterprise Solutions
                                      • Digital Marketers
                                      Free SEO Tools
                                      • Domain Authority Checker
                                      • Link Explorer
                                      • Keyword Explorer
                                      • Competitive Research
                                      • Brand Authority Checker
                                      • Local Citation Checker
                                      • MozBar Extension
                                      • MozCast
                                      Resources
                                      • Blog
                                      • SEO Learning Center
                                      • Help Hub
                                      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                                      • How-to Guides
                                      • Moz Academy
                                      • API Docs
                                      About Moz
                                      • About
                                      • Team
                                      • Careers
                                      • Contact
                                      Why Moz
                                      • Case Studies
                                      • Testimonials
                                      Get Involved
                                      • Become an Affiliate
                                      • MozCon
                                      • Webinars
                                      • Practical Marketer Series
                                      • MozPod
                                      Connect with us

                                      Contact the Help team

                                      Join our newsletter
                                      Moz logo
                                      © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                                      • Accessibility
                                      • Terms of Use
                                      • Privacy

                                      Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.