Unknown "/" added causing 404 error

[jessential]

I have four 404 url redirect errors that I cannot sort out.

It tells me the referring url:

|

www.homedestination.com/calculator-mortgage-resources.html has a "/" on the end.

cannot find:

| www.homedestination.com/calculator-mortgage-resources.html |

I cannot figure out where this referring url is; as it is in the root file without a "/" on the end.  Could it be on a page somewhere?  All my Dreamweaver page link tests come back ok.

I must be missing something simple and would value help for others who may spot it?

Thanks!

|

[JordanJudson]

I am not sure how to go about finding the broken link but if you want a simple fix you could try adding a 301 redirect so that the 404 error won't happen any more. Do you know how to do that?

[jessential]

Jordan,

Thanks for your response.

Yes.  I have done that some months back.  My problem is with url redirects that have the "/" on the end. AND all my aspx files - Adobe Business Catalyst does not allow me to use a 301 redirect on them.  All that in another subject.

As none of my pages ends in a slash, I don't know where this came from and what to do since the traditional 301 url redirect fails.

[JordanJudson]

My guess would be that it is coming from an external site.

[evolvingSEO]

Where are you getting your 404 error report? If from someone other then Google Webmaster Tools, probably not a worry.

That page is not indexed in Google (and if they did index it, they took out the slash, so you don't need to do a redirect.) You probably have a link on your site and someone accidently added the slash in the <a>href link. Just find the bad link on your site and take out the slash.  </a>

<a>The only other thing that could be causing this, is a backlink, but opensite explorer does not have back links for that page yet.

The best place to check for 404s that need attention is Google Webmaster Tools.

-Dan

PS - You should really have a canonical tag on your site.</a>

[jessential]

Dan,

Thanks for the helpful answer.

Sorting through that  many pages looking for a stray "/" will take time.  Any shortcut ways to find it?  I do not get the error in Google crawl checks; I do find it in my deeper seomoz advanced cvs files.  Need I try fix it then?

You are right about the canonical tag.  For whatever reason I get an error in seomoz that says:

Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical

Moderate fix

<dl>

<dt>Canonical URL</dt>

<dd>"http://www.homedestinantion.com/calculator-mortgage-resources.html"</dd>

<dt>Explanation</dt>

<dd>If the canonical tag is pointing to a different URL, engines will not count this page as the reference resource and thus, it won't have an opportunity to rank. Make sure you're targeting the right page (if this isn't it, you can reset the target above) and then change the canonical tag to reference that URL.</dd>

<dt>Recommendation</dt>

<dd>We check to make sure that IF you use canonical URL tags, it points to the right page. If the canonical tag points to a different URL, engines will not count this page as the reference resource and thus, it won't have an opportunity to rank. If you've not made this page the rel=canonical target, change the reference to this URL. NOTE: For pages not employing canonical URL tags, this factor does not apply.</dd>

</dl>