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.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • 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
    • 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. Strange URLs, how do I fix this?

    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.

    Strange URLs, how do I fix this?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    2
    6
    873
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • JohnPeters
      JohnPeters last edited by

      I've just check Majestic and have seen around 50 links coming from one of my other sites. The links all look like this:

      http://www.dwww.mysite.com
      http://www.eee.mysite.com
      http://www.w.mysite.com

      The site these links are coming from is a html site.

      Any ideas whats going on or a way to get rid of these urls?

      When I visit the strange URLs such as http://www.dwww.mysite.com, it shows the home page of http://www.mysite.com. Is there a way to redirect anything like this back to the home page?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Cyrus-Shepard
        Cyrus-Shepard @JohnPeters last edited by

        I'm not an expert here, but it sounds like your server is configured to resolve wildcard subdomains.

        Unfortunately, I'm not nearly technical enough to even begin to tell you how to solve it. This is generally configured in your hosting account cpanel, with a subdomain set to *. ( I believe there may be an .htaccess element to it as well.) Since there are so many different server configurations, my best advice would be to consult your hosting company and seek their advice.

        Otherwise, proper absolute canonicals (with full URLs) on every page should act as a backup safety solution.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • JohnPeters
          JohnPeters @Cyrus-Shepard last edited by

          Hi Cyrus,

          Thanks for taking the time to reply, really appreciated.

          Yes understood, I shouldnt be worried about these strange link urls.

          But I am now concerned about the behavior of my site in the way when you type in say http://www.dwww.mysite.com, it doesn't give you a 404 or missing page, it shows the home page.

          Ive checked my other sites and added characters after the www. and most either redirect to home page or show a page not found.

          Any ideas why this isnt happening on this site? Is it the htaccess?

          Cyrus-Shepard 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Cyrus-Shepard
            Cyrus-Shepard last edited by

            Hi John,

            You hit the nail on the head when you asked - "What's going on?"

            My big question is: do these links actually exist? You said they are coming from one of your other sites, so can you actually visit those pages and find the links?

            If you can't, and if other reporting tools don't show those links, then it's possible it's a fluke with the Majestic crawlers. Almost all crawlers (including SEOmoz and even Google) sometimes have trouble parsing javascript or other pieces of code on a site and create phantom links and URLs. Usually these get sorted out and are of little consequence, but occasionally a few slip into reports.

            I highly suspect something like that is going on in this situation. I would check both Open Site Explorer and Google Webmaster Tools to see if they show these links. Most likely you have nothing to worry about.

            Also, since these links don't appear to come from real pages, there's no value in redirecting them.

            Let me know what you find. If these are indeed real links worthy of saving, then we can start to discuss redirecting them.

            Hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO.

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

              Now there are over 500 links coming from strange URLS

              Really need some help

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

                Any body any ideas?

                Having no luck at all

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

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                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

                • Hermski

                  Solved hreflang href: Should Japanese URL characters be encoded

                  hreflang hreflang tags japanese hreflang urls

                  Hi all, I have searched in vain for a concrete answer to this question. If you're dealing with the hreflang tags yourself (i.e. don't use automation plugins etc.), is it okay if the URLs (e.g. in Japanese) remain unencrypted? Example (not encoded):
                  <link rel="alternate" hreflang="ja" href="https://domain. com/エグザイルリンク/" /> The same encoded:
                  <link rel="alternate" hreflang="ja" href="https://domain. com/%e3%82%a8%e3%82%b0%e3%82%b6%e3%82%a4%e3%83%ab%e3%83%aa%e3%83%b3%e3%82%af" /> When checking the unencoded tags in hreflang checkers, they don't seem to have a problem with this (they don't flag any issues). Also on other websites I see both approaches with unencoded and encoded hreflang variants. What is your opinion on this, could there be conflicts and/or is there a best practice? Thanks all

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Hermski
                  0
                • Gabriele_Layoutweb

                  If I block a URL via the robots.txt - how long will it take for Google to stop indexing that URL?

                  If I block a URL via the robots.txt - how long will it take for Google to stop indexing that URL?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gabriele_Layoutweb
                  0
                • andyheath

                  Will disallowing URL's in the robots.txt file stop those URL's being indexed by Google

                  I found a lot of duplicate title tags showing in Google Webmaster Tools. When I visited the URL's that these duplicates belonged to, I found that they were just images from a gallery that we didn't particularly want Google to index. There is no benefit to the end user in these image pages being indexed in Google. Our developer has told us that these urls are created by a module and are not "real" pages in the CMS. They would like to add the following to our robots.txt file Disallow: /catalog/product/gallery/ QUESTION: If the these pages are already indexed by Google, will this adjustment to the robots.txt file help to remove the pages from the index? We don't want these pages to be found.

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andyheath
                  0
                • CFSSEO

                  Double hyphen in URL - bad?

                  Instead of a URL such as domain.com/double-dash/  programming wants to use domain.com/double--dash/ for some reason that makes things easier for them. Would a double dash in the URL have a negative effect on the page ranking?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CFSSEO
                  0
                • andypatalak

                  Mobile website on a different URL address?

                  My client has an old eCommerce website that is ranking high in Google. The website is not responsive for mobile devices. The client wants to create a responsive design mobile version of the website and put it on a different URL address. There would be a link on the current page pointing to the external mobile website. Is this approach ok or not? The reason why the client does not want to change the design of the current website is because he does not have the budget to do so and there are a lot of pages that would need to be moved to the new design. Any advice would be appreciated.

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andypatalak
                  0
                • JohnPeters

                  Crazy long weird URLs... help

                  I have a HTML website, mysite1.com, and I placed a link on the home page to another one of my sites, mysite2.com Today I checked the links to mysite2.com in Majestic and noticed 24 links coming from the mysite1.com instead of just one link. The URLs from mysite1.com that are showing in Majestic are like this mysite1.com/?epl=4donafvFK3fMXxZXMWQRQLodmPchoXCK5C7-kbBv_agkwlkJrZAoaSDVUlhqFmUqt0f8c2Q6jF6GO6DNMnbidqRsikriF-IEBEt5okmICLEB0FxP36GrsxoPGQ3SGBo1PVR7itDUA4CYmjypn5gi mysite1.com,was inherited from a friend and I believe that it was originally built in Frontpage. Can you tell me how I can get rid of these multiple links as I only want 1 showing from the home page Thanks in advance

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnPeters
                  0
                • CommercePundit

                  How to fix issues regarding URL parameters?

                  Today, I was reading help article for URL parameters by Google. http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=1235687 I come to know that, Google is giving value to URLs which ave parameters that change or determine the content of a page. There are too many pages in my website with similar value for Name, Price and Number of product. But, I have restricted all pages by Robots.txt with following syntax. URLs:
                  http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?dir=asc&order=name
                  http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?dir=asc&order=price
                  http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?limit=100 Syntax in Robots.txt
                  Disallow: /?dir=
                  Disallow: /?p=
                  Disallow: /*?limit= Now, I am confuse. Which is best solution to get maximum benefits in SEO?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit
                  0
                • AndrewY

                  Blocking Dynamic URLs with Robots.txt

                  Background: My e-commerce site uses a lot of layered navigation and sorting links.  While this is great for users, it ends up in a lot of URL variations of the same page being crawled by Google.  For example, a standard category page: www.mysite.com/widgets.html ...which uses a "Price" layered navigation sidebar to filter products based on price also produces the following URLs which link to the same page: http://www.mysite.com/widgets.html?price=1%2C250 http://www.mysite.com/widgets.html?price=2%2C250 http://www.mysite.com/widgets.html?price=3%2C250 As there are literally thousands of these URL variations being indexed, so I'd like to use Robots.txt to disallow these variations. Question: Is this a wise thing to do?  Or does Google take into account layered navigation links by default, and I don't need to worry. To implement, I was going to do the following in Robots.txt: User-agent: * Disallow: /*? Disallow: /*= ....which would prevent any dynamic URL with a '?" or '=' from being indexed.  Is there a better way to do this, or is this a good solution? Thank you!

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AndrewY
                  1

                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.