Strange URLs, how do I fix this?

[JohnPeters]

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?

[JohnPeters]

Any body any ideas?

Having no luck at all

[JohnPeters]

Now there are over 500 links coming from strange URLS

Really need some help

[Cyrus-Shepard]

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]

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]

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.