• 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. Research & Trends
        3. Algorithm Updates
        4. Remove spam url errors from search console

        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.

        Remove spam url errors from search console

        Algorithm Updates
        4
        4
        6337
        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.
        • rubennunez
          rubennunez last edited by

          My site was hacked some time ago. I've since then redesigned it and obviously removed all the injection spam. Now I see in search console that I'm getting hundreds of url errors (from the spam links that no longer work).

          How do I remove them from the search console. The only option I see is "mark as fixed", but obviously they are not "fixed", rather removed.

          I've already uploaded a new sitemap and fetched the site, as well as submitted a reconsideration request that has been approved.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • monicapopa
            monicapopa @BasKierkels last edited by

            Hi Ruben,

            I had the same issue with one of the websites and what Bas has recommended is great. We've done both methods and it cleared 90% of them. We are still getting a few in the search console and I am planning to update the disavow list, and hopefully they will disappear completely.

            Hope Bas's recommendations will work for you.

            Good luck,

            Monica.

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

              Removing them from the Console will have no effect on your  site, Ruben - its' purely for your own housekeeping purposes.

              Mark them fixed to get them out of the lists so that real ones will be easier to spot as they come up. As long as the spam links are landing on a real hard 404, they will eventually drop out. But it will take a considerably long time because those spam pages are such low value that Google isn't likely to recrawl them to discover the 404 very often. (Not that that will do you any harm, just annoying to look at.)

              Also - don't be alarmed if some of those you mark "fixed" show up back in the list in a couple of months - that's not indicative of any problem.

              Hope that helps?

              Paul

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

                Hi Ruben,

                You've uploaded a new site map so Google will correct this over time.

                Method #1: In the mean time you can manually delete the URL's from Webmaster Tools:
                https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/url-removal

                You can find this link in 'Google-index' and after that 'Remove URLs'. I have translated those terms from Dutch so give me some slack 😉

                Post the URL you can to delete and hit Enter. Will take some effort but i've noticed a couple of days ago that it works like a charm.

                In the mean time Google will remove the old URL's permanently from the index.

                Method #2: If you are familiar with .htaccess-files you can also mention the old URL's there and give a 410-status code. '410' stands for "The URL is gone and i have no new URL for you". Or - as someone wrote a couple of years ago - "It's gone, No really: it's gone."

                Perhaps this link will help you on your way:
                http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2014/11/http-410-error-pages-htaccess/

                Good luck!
                Bas

                monicapopa 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                • 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

                • tejasbansode

                  Should we include URLs with parameters in the sitemap?

                  Hi, I wanted to know whether we can include URLs with search parameters in the sitemap. Currently, we are trying to append structured data for our job listing page. There happens to be a large number of job listings around 1000 pages with unique job-id and location. Should we add these pages in the sitemap or is there any other solution to this? Regards, Tejas

                  Algorithm Updates | | tejasbansode
                  0
                • alan-shultis

                  My site is showing indexed in search console but not appearing in Serps

                  hi, i have recently made sites.google site and submitted to search console but when I copy paste in google , its not appearing

                  Algorithm Updates | | alan-shultis
                  0
                • brantmk

                  Can hreflang tags still work when the Alternate URL is 301 redirecting to a translated URL in Japanese Characters?

                  My organization has several international sites 4 of them of which have translated URLs in either Japanese, Traditional Chinese, German & Canadian French. The hreflang tags we have set up on our United States look something like this: But when you actually go to http://www.domain.co.jp/it-security/ you are 301 redirected to the translated URL version: www.domain.co.jp/it-セキュリティ/
                  My question is, will Google still understand that the translated URL is the Alternate URL, or will this present errors? The hreflang tags are automated for each of our pages and would technically be hard to populate the hreflang with the translated URL version. However we could potentially make the hreflang something customized on a page level basis.

                  Algorithm Updates | | brantmk
                  0
                • newspore

                  Flat Structure URL vs Structured Sub-directory URL

                  We are finally taking our classifieds site forward and moving into a much improved URL structure, however, there is some disagreement over whether to go with a Flat URL structure or a structured sub-directory. I've browsed all of the posts and Q&A's for this going back to 2011, and still don't feel like I have a real answer. Has anyone tested this yet, or is there any consensus over ranking? I am in a disagreement with another SEO manager about this for our proposed URL structure redesign who is for it because it is what our competitors are doing. Our classifieds are geographically based, and we group by state, county, and city. Most of our traffic comes from state and county based searches. We also would like to integrate categories into the URL for some of the major search terms we see. The disagreement arises around how to structure the site. I prefer the logical sub-directory style: [sitename]/[category]/[state]/[county]/
                  mysite.com/for-sale/california/kern-county/
                  or
                  [sitename]/[category]/[county]-county-[stateabb]/
                  mysite.com/for-sale/kern-county-ca/ I don't mind the second, except for when you look at it in the context of the whole site: Geo Landing Pages:
                  mysite.com/california/
                  mysite.com/los-angeles-ca-90210/ Actual Search Pages:
                  mysite.com/for-sale/orange-ca/[filters] Detail Pages:
                  mysite.com/widget-type/cool-product-name/productid I want to make sure this flat structure performs better before sacrificing my analytics sanity (and ordered logic). Any case studies, tests or real data around this would be most helpful, someone at Moz must've tackled this by now!

                  Algorithm Updates | | newspore
                  0
                • MarshallThompson31

                  Geo Target Location in your URL Structure

                  Hello everyone at SEOMOZ      😄 I have a question if you would be as kind as to inform me of which direction that I should take on this matter would be the more desirable approach for my seo strategy I have been using my location in my URL structure since I started doing SEO 5 years ago and I have always benefited from including my city in the URL. My question is, since the SEO landscape has change so drastically over the past 2 years and the Search Engines have become much more end user friendly and list suggestions for users as they type would it be more beneficial in 2013 to have the "Keyword" before or after the Geo Targeted Location in the URL structure? I own a computer repair business for the past 6 years now and I know that when i check to see where I am ranking for a particular keyword phrase such as "Computer Repair" GOOGLE detects my location and provides suggestions as I start typing out "Computer Repair" for the search query. One of the suggestions is "Computer Repair Wilmington NC" so I am starting to wonder if placing the Geo Targeted City after the Keyword  would be the wiser choice instead of before it like a couple of years ago? Working Example: Here is a site that I am building out right now to re-brand my business. Currently I have one of the Silo Category Slugs set as seen below using the Location before the Keyword The First Example has the Geo Target Location before the Keyword and looks more natural to visitors on the site (at least to me) however I'm afraid that I may be shooting myself in the foot not placing the keyword before the Target Location? But if I do that, It does not read or flow fluently to the average looker so kinda confused and torn on how to deal with this>! FIRST EXAMPLE: Location Before Keyword Silo Parent Category  = "Computer Repair" http://www.pcmedicsoncall.com/wilmington-nc-computer-repair/ Silo Child Category  =  "Laptop" http://www.pcmedicsoncall.com/wilmington-nc-computer-repair/laptop-repair/ Silo Grand Child Category  =  "LCD Replacement" http://www.pcmedicsoncall.com/wilmington-nc-computer-repair/laptop/lcd-screen-replacement/ **SECOND EXAMPLE: ** Keyword Before Location Silo Parent Category  = "Computer Repair" http://www.pcmedicsoncall.com/computer-repair-wilmington-nc/ Silo Child Category  =  "Laptop" http://www.pcmedicsoncall.com/computer-repair-wilmington-nc/laptop-repair/ Silo Grand Child Category  =  "LCD Replacement" http://www.pcmedicsoncall.com/computer-repair-wilmington-nc/laptop-repair/lcd-screen-replacement/ Which would be the more favorable of the 2 examples that I have given please? Keyword before or After the Geo Targeted Location? thank you

                  Algorithm Updates | | MarshallThompson31
                  0
                • goforgreen

                  Excessive internal links. Should I remove the footer links?

                  Hi guys, I have an ecommerce site selling eco-friendly items online. I ran some on-page optimisation reports from SEOMoz PRO and discovered that I have at least 120 internal links per page. 32 of these are in the footer, designed in part to aid user navigation but perhaps also to have a positive impact on SERPs and SEO in general for the ecommerce site. Will removing these links be beneficial to my search engine rankings, as I will have less than 100 internal links per page? Or is it a major change which may be dangerous for my site rankings? Please help as I'm not sure about this! I've attached an image of the footer links below. I won't be removing the Facebook/Twitter links, just the 3 columns on the left. Thank you, Pravin MAvLe.jpg

                  Algorithm Updates | | goforgreen
                  0
                • Modbargains

                  Manual query to search for backlinks?

                  Hello, I've been using open site explorer, dabbled with seo spy glass, and other back linking sites, but I was wondering if there was a manual way of searching for back links? Such as site.www.widgets.com +keyword -widgets.com to show me results of all the sites pointing to www.widgets.com, or pointing to the keywords linking to widgets.com. I do enjoy Open Site Explorer, but it takes a few months index the back links ive done.

                  Algorithm Updates | | Modbargains
                  0
                • syount

                  How do I get the expanded results in a Google search?

                  I notice for certain site (ex: mint.com) that when I search, the top result has a very detailed view with options to click to different subsections of the site. However for my site, even though we're consistently the top result for our branded terms, the result is still only a single line item. How do I adjust this?

                  Algorithm Updates | | syount
                  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.