404 Errors generating in WP

[SIXSEO]

Our crawl reports are generating back several 404 errors for pages with urls that look like:

/category/consulting/page/5/

The tag changes, the page number changes, but the result is always the same: A big glaring 404. Our sites are built on WordPress Multi-site, and I am fairly certain this issue is on the WP end, but I can't figure out why it is generating pages out to infinity, essentially, from the tags and categories.

It is worse on some sites than others, but  is happening across the board (my initial concern was that it might be a theme issue, but that does not seem to be the case).

If anyone has run into this issue and knows a fix, you're insight would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[BlueprintMarketing]

Hi 404 are extremely common. I would build 404 page and I would also use this plug-in here but make sure that you understand that this is by far no way perfect. You must check the logs consistently and make sure their note for forest mistaken for instance I had used it once and it had four or my feed back my homepage

http://wordpress.org/plugins/redirection/

However this is a very good plug-in that has been progressively getting better. It is recommended by some of the best people in WP I strongly recommend using it and I hope I've helped you if you need anymore help please let me know.

sincerely,

Thomas

Yes this will also work if you're using Nginx a much faster web server type that Apache or even lightspeed. However it is very hard to create 301 anyone use a Nginx web server environment. However this tool is able to do so and then most Managed WordPress hosts are the ones that are actually using Nginx with this Internet these days. Or managed WordPress hosts are able to then rewrite the correct 301 with this redirection plug-in is able to create 301 100% then most of the time people running Nginx  host make the corrections after the redirection have to spend time.

The specialty of this redirection plug-in the is catching 404's and redirecting them to a page that it should be redirected to logically for instance if I was going to have /about/ 404 and then /about- us/ the plug-in easily figure that out that should be the correct redirect and then mixed the correction automatically you can also turn off this mode once you believe 404's are no longer an issue.

You can also use an Apache only mode which depending on your Web server might me your needs better depending on what type of Webster rerunning

I think this is an outstanding plug-in and definitely believe that it is a huge help if you have a any amount of 404s.

I hope I've been of help,

Thomas

[Saijo.George]

I seriously doubt the issue is with WP. perhaps a plugin might be conflicting with how the page is rendered. Make sure you have a database and file backup. You could FTP in and rename the plugins folder to _plugins ( this will disable all plugins )  and check if the issue persists. Rename the folder back to plugins once you finish testing it.

NOTE : with some plugins you will have to manually go in a enable and configure them after you do this.

[LynnPatchett]

Hi Melissa,

It is actually pretty common for wp based sites to spin out repeated 404 errors (or at least have the potential to do this). It could be a theme issue, a plugin issue or a setup issue or a combination of all 3 depending on the site.

First thing to do is figure out where the link is coming from. Download your moz error report in csv and filter by 404's. On the left you will have the 404 page and on the far right you will have the referring page. Go to the referring page and view the source and try to find that link. Keep an eye out for relative links from deep structure pages also (so you have page /category/page/5 and the link is a relative href="/" or href="/6" which can have the effect of spawning repeated 404s like /category/page/5/6 etc etc).

Once you have found the link, you should be able to identify the template part which is producing them and then act accordingly to either edit the template or adjust the settings/plugin so that they stop. If you can give us a real example of a 404 and its linking page we should be able to give you more specific info.

[BlueprintMarketing]

Yoast's SEO plug-in for WordPress

Will eliminate the /1/ /2/ /3/ page effect.

http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/

I hope this is of help. The running multisite through a non-subdomain set up on expecting correct?

[evolvingSEO]

I second Lynn's answer. You need to find where the link is coming from to begin with. Could also use Screaming Frog SEO Spider or Webmaster Tools - they will all get you the same thing. Find out where the bad URLs are linked from, and then you can narrow down the source of bad code or whatever it may be.

-Dan

[Christy-Correll]

Hi Melissa, you've received some great responses. Did any of them help you resolve your issue?

[BlueprintMarketing]

I want to first say I apologize for the wording on my first answer I was using voice recognition and it made a few mistakes. I also want to say I agree with what Dan has said he really knows WordPress and I would take

his advice the fact that he's endorsed Lynn's answer makes me believe that it is the correct one and screaming frog spider is one of the best tools in the world for any type of website and can help you create 301's  easily to get rid of your 404's on the paid version

here is a great Screaming frog spider guide By Seer

http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/screaming-frog-guide

I hope this helps,

Thomas

[evolvingSEO]

Here's what to do;

1. Crawl the site with Screaming Frog (you can do up to 500 URLs with the free version).
2. Look for the suspect pages in your crawl list.
3. Click once on the page in the list
4. Below, click "To Links" - and this box will show you the page(s) linking to the bad 404 page.
5. View the "From" page (which links to the bad page) in your browser.
6. Look at the source code for that page - do a "find" and paste in the bad page's URL. This will show you where it's linking from.
7. Fix the spot in your theme or template where it is linking to pages that do not exist.

[BlueprintMarketing]

This is the exact answer that you want if you have any issues running into problems once you have isolated them with screaming frog you can easily pick them out and redirect them either through your host or through a plug-in depending upon where you're hosted and how your site is being managed.