• seohunters9

        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. Technical SEO
        4. 404 Error Pages being picked up as duplicate content

        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.

        404 Error Pages being picked up as duplicate content

        Technical SEO
        5
        7
        1662
        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.
        • kfallconnect
          kfallconnect last edited by

          Hi,

          I recently noticed an increase in duplicate content, but all of the pages are 404 error pages.

          For instance, Moz site crawl says this page: https://www.allconnect.com/sc-internet/internet.html has 43 duplicates and all the duplicates are also 404 pages (https://www.allconnect.com/Coxstatic.html for instance is a duplicate of this page).

          Looking for insight on how to fix this issue, do I add an rel=canonical tag to these 60 error pages that points to the original error page?

          Thanks!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • kfallconnect
            kfallconnect @GlobeRunner last edited by

            I just did a check and you're right, even though these pages are showing up as errors to the user they are actually showing up as 200 OK, which is causing the duplicate content issue.

            Thank you!

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • GlobeRunner
              GlobeRunner last edited by

              kfallconnect, if the 404 errors are being picked up as duplicate content, then most likely they're not actually showing up as 404 error pages. It's quite possible that it's a 404 error on the site (that's what the user sees) but, in fact, the server header is not displaying a 404 error. It could be showing up as a "200 OK".

              First, I would identify the pages. If the user sees an error on the page, then that's fine. Use a server header check tool to see what the response code is when someone goes to the page. You can use something like Rex Swain's HTTP header tool to check it: http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html . If the page shows a 404 error then you should be fine, it's not duplicate content.

              If the page is showing a "200 OK" then it most likely IS duplicate content. If the page is showing an error to users but showing a '200 OK' in the server header, then that needs to be fixed.

              But if the page is showing actual content (and not an error to visitors) then you need to look at potentially using the canonical tag or removing the content on the site completely (which is preferred).

              kfallconnect 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • ClaytonJ
                ClaytonJ @kfallconnect last edited by

                I have not used Drupal for a couple of years, but there used to be a plugin called Fast 404 for some versions. Need to check whether suitable and if it weighs downs page speed. Zach is right if you can manually handle it do so, but if not perhaps research a plugin and research side effects.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • kfallconnect
                  kfallconnect @ClaytonJ last edited by

                  We run on Drupal so I'm not sure if there is a 404 plug in

                  ClaytonJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • DietzenDev
                    DietzenDev last edited by

                    I had some issues with 404 errors as well.

                    Not sure how your site is set up but I just added permanent redirects on all the 404 duplicates I was having. I didn't have as many as you so it was pretty easy to do. I'm not sure if this is the 100% correct way of doing it but it fixed my issue.

                    Hope it helps!

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

                      I am not sure of the site is wordpress but have you considered 'smart 404' plugin. Could consider adding to the site, a solution.

                      Hope that assists.

                      Regards

                      kfallconnect 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

                      • woshea

                        Google Search Console Showing 404 errors for product pages not in sitemap?

                        search console 404 error 404s

                        We have some products with url changes over the past several months. Google is showing these as having 404 errors even though they are not in sitemap (sitemap shows the correct NEW url). Is this expected? Will these errors eventually go away/stop being monitored by Google?

                        Technical SEO | | woshea
                        0
                      • MichaelGregory

                        Hundreds of 404 errors are showing up for pages that never existed

                        For our site, Google is suddenly reporting hundreds of 404 errors, but the pages they are reporting never existed. The links Google shows are clearly spam style,  but the website hasn't been hacked. This happened a few weeks ago, and after a couple days they disappeared from WMT. What's the deal? Screen-Shot-2016-02-29-at-9.35.18-AM.png

                        Technical SEO | | MichaelGregory
                        0
                      • CRMI

                        Duplicate Page Content and Titles from Weebly Blog

                        Anyone familiar with Weebly that can offer some suggestions? I ran a crawl diagnostics on my site and have some high priority issues that appear to stem from Weebly Blog posts.  There are several of them and it appears that the post is being counted as "page content" on the main blog feed and then again when it is tagged to a category.  I hope this makes sense, I am new to SEO and this is really confusing. Thanks!

                        Technical SEO | | CRMI
                        0
                      • Pete4

                        Why is Google Webmaster Tools showing 404 Page Not Found Errors for web pages that don't have anything to do with my site?

                        I am currently working on a small site with approx 50 web pages.  In the crawl error section in WMT Google has highlighted over 10,000 page not found errors for pages that have nothing to do with my site.  Anyone come across this before?

                        Technical SEO | | Pete4
                        0
                      • DHS_SH

                        Duplicate Content Issues on Product Pages

                        Hi guys Just keen to gauge your opinion on a quandary that has been bugging me for a while now. I work on an ecommerce website that sells around 20,000 products. A lot of the product SKUs are exactly the same in terms of how they work and what they offer the customer. Often it is 1 variable that changes. For example, the product may be available in 200 different sizes and 2 colours (therefore 400 SKUs available to purchase). Theese SKUs have been uploaded to the website as individual entires so that the customer can purchase them, with the only difference between the listings likely to be key signifiers such as colour, size, price, part number etc. Moz has flagged these pages up as duplicate content. Now I have worked on websites long enough now to know that duplicate content is never good from an SEO perspective, but I am struggling to work out an effective way in which I can display such a large number of almost identical products without falling foul of the duplicate content issue. If you wouldnt mind sharing any ideas or approaches that have been taken by you guys that would be great!

                        Technical SEO | | DHS_SH
                        0
                      • cttgroup

                        Can iFrames count as duplicate content on either page?

                        Hi All Basically what we are wanting to do is insert an iframe with some text on onto a lot of different pages on one website. Does google crawl the content that is in an iFrame? Thanks

                        Technical SEO | | cttgroup
                        0
                      • jhinchcliffe

                        Is duplicate content ok if its on LinkedIn?

                        Hey everyone, I am doing a duplicate content check using copyscape, and realized we have used a ton of the same content on LinkedIn as our website. Should we change the LinkedIn company page to be original? Or does it matter? Thank you!

                        Technical SEO | | jhinchcliffe
                        0
                      • TOMMarketingLtd.

                        Home Page .index.htm and .com Duplicate Page Content/Title

                        I have been whittling away at the duplicate content on my clients' sites, thanks to SEOmoz's pro report, and have been getting push back from the account manager at register.com (the site was built here and the owner doesn't want to move it).  He says these are the exact same page and he can't access one to redirect to the other.  Any suggestions? The SEOmoz report says there is duplicate content on both these urls: Durango Mountain Biking | Durango Mountain Resort - Cascade Village http://www.cascadevillagehotel.com/index.htm Durango Mountain Biking | Durango Mountain Resort - Cascade Village http://www.cascadevillagehotel.com/ Your help is greatly appreciated! Sheryl

                        Technical SEO | | TOMMarketingLtd.
                        0

                      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.