Why are Seemingly Randomly Generated URLs Appearing as Errors in Google Webmaster Tools?

[kimwetter]

I've been confused by some URLs that are showing up as errors in our GWT account. They seem to just be randomly generated alphanumeric strings that Google is reporting as 404 errors. The pages do 404 because nothing ever existed there or was linked to. Here are some examples that are just off of our root domain:

/JEzjLs2wBR0D6wILPy0RCkM/WFRnUK9JrDyRoVCnR8=

/MevaBpcKoXnbHJpoTI5P42QPmQpjEPBlYffwY8Mc5I=

/YAKM15iU846X/ymikGEPsdq 26PUoIYSwfb8 FBh34=

I haven't been able to track down these character strings in any internet index or anywhere in our source code so I have no idea why Google is reporting them.

We've been pretty vigilant lately about duplicate content and thin content issues and my concern is that there are an unspecified number of urls like this that Google thinks exist but don't really.

Has anyone else seen GWT reporting errors like this for their site? Does anyone have any clue why Google would report them as errors?

[RyanKent]

Glad to hear you located the root cause of the issue.

[kimwetter]

Update: I think I found the source of the errors. We have a form submission box on every page of our site and there are random alphanumeric strings that are unique to every page that look like these urls that Google is reporting as errors. Maybe Google is trying to use our form submission tool.

It's still really odd that Google would think they are urls and report them as errors since they appear in an tag not an <a> tag</a>

<a>```
<input id="authenticity_token" name="authenticity_token" type="hidden" value="ElCkBCszxMddaqVyVIx+flkzRlM9xb7mHb3cFISlJvY=" />

[RyanKent]

The next step would be to check Google WMT > Diagnostics > Crawl errors > Not Found tab

Click the "Linked from Detected" text. That will show the source of the link.

[kimwetter]

That's not the case. We have an in house content system and no shopping cart. These urls return a 404 error and always have because they've never existed.

No crawlers have returned urls that look like this either. I can't get these urls to show up in Google's index either.

[RyanKent]

Hi Jimmy,

My bet is you are using a CMS or Shopping Cart on your site. The software is generating these seemingly random URLs, and the Google crawler is seeing them.

Crawlers don't move through your site the way people do. If you take your home page and right-click, then choose View Page Source, you will find many URLs. The crawler will then follow each and every URL throughout your site. The URLs you are seeing could be generated on any given page.

To track the issue, use the SEOmoz crawler on your site, then analyze the results. When you find these types of URLs, take note of the page they are located on.

Alternatively, you can contact your CMS or shopping cart's software developer and inquire about the URLs. If these URLs show a folder path before the random characters, that information can help track down which pages or software is generating these pages.