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Here is the article I was referring to: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1269119?hl=en

I should've said the "Remove URLs" tool instead of the Disavow Tool. Yes, Disavow Tool is to disavow incoming links that you don't want. The Remove URL tool is to remove content from Google, but I went through their little page about how to use the Remove URL tool and it says don't use it to get rid of content that doesn't exist anymore, and that Google will naturally find it. Well, how long does that take? Months? And what happens if I do use it? Ugh, this is very annoying as it is affecting a lot of my websites, and I don't know how much of an impact these Crawl Errors actually have on my site. Again, I understand the value of links that people are actually linking to, but this is more like hidden content that Google found, which I've gotten rid of, but they're still looking for it. Any help is appreciated.

The pages exist, but they are unpublished drafts, not accessible to the public. I have marked them as fixed and they keep popping up.

I've checked the site and I'm not linking to them on any of the pages that are live. It just seems like before I marked them as drafts, Google spotted them and is still looking for them. They were never in any sitemap I've submitted before, so I'm confused by this. I've also opened up a thread in the past regarding why some 404 crawl errors come up for desktop, and why different ones come up under Smartphone.

I'm trying to clean all of the Crawl Errors for my sites, and I've reached the point where I've become slightly confused. A lot of these pages that come up in Crawl Errors aren't being linked to anywhere. The ones I'm referring to are mostly pages that came with a theme that I'm using - part of the demo content - which I've since set to Unpublished Drafts. I'm not linking to these pages anywhere on any of my Published pages, yet Google is still looking for them, still showing them in Crawl Errors as Not Found.

I'm assuming that Google found these pages at some point and can't find them now. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to keep setting up 301 redirects for these, or should I use the Disavow tool for these pages? I want to tell Google to forget these pages completely because I never intended for these pages to be indexed.

This happens for just about all of my Wordpress websites in Google Search Console. Can someone please shed some light on this? If there are any articles on this problem, please share! Thanks!

Looks exactly the same on my phone as it does on desktop. The pages coming up as 404s in GSC under Smartphone are NOT listed on this page-sitemap.xml page.

I am using Yoast but I am only using the Page sitemap, and it is the only one I have submitted for the affected sites. Again, this doesn't really explain why it's coming up under Smartphone and not Desktop. Also, Google does tell you where these are linking from, and it does say the sitemap page, but when i looked at the sitemap page, these pages are not listed. I am looking at them on my desktop though and not my smartphone. If I looked at the /page-sitemap.xml page on my phone would it look any different? :::quickly picks up his phone and tests it out:::

It might be worth it to switch domain names at the end of the day, depending on how important it is to you.

Fortunately, I've never had to do it, but I've read a million times that after you disavow links and try to get rid of bad links the best you can, at some point, after you've literally attempted to get rid of each and every link that has the potential of causing you issues, you have this option to write a "reconsideration request" to Google.

Read this guide, it's great, and the reconsideration request is mentioned in Step 7: https://moz.com/blog/ultimate-guide-to-google-penalty-removal

Best of luck! Let us know if anything changes in the future!

I don't think anyone can give you a real answer to that question. Any answer would be speculation. There's also not enough info here.

Have you gone through Google Search Console and looked under Manual Actions? How does the rest of GSC look in terms of errors and such?

I would try using the Moz Span Analysis tool and see if you missed any other bad links.

It sounds like it could be possible that Google is manually banning you from the first page. I don't know if that is a real thing or if they actually do that, but I suppose that could be possible! Have you tried sending a message to Google explaining all the steps you have taken to try to remove all spam?

I'm seeing similar issues. I was going to post a question, but found this when I searched.

I'm using Wordpress and I have some theme pages that I have set as drafts, so that I can access them on my end, but the public would get a 404. In Google Search Console, under Desktop, none of these pages are coming up. But under Smartphone, somehow Google is finding these unpublished draft URLs as 404 Not Found errors.

My question is why is Google seeing these pages, and also why it's triggering on Smartphone only and not desktop. And my last question is the obvious one: how do I fix this!?

Thanks!

Here is Mashable's article on what's next: http://mashable.com/2015/02/27/net-neutrality-whats-next/?utm_cid=hp-hh-pri

I don't think they're coming out with HTTP/2 as another option vs HTTP, each with their separate pros and cons. I don't look at it as HTTP vs HTTPS, for example, but rather HTTP 2.0 - the next generation of HTTP. There may be short term, temporary issues as it rolls out. There may be hosts that take a while to get on board. But aside from that, I am hearing that it will seriously speed up load times as it will be able to load multiple elements at a time simultaneously, as well as an increase in security, which is much needed in today's day and age.

Here are a few articles I found on today's events. Please keep in mind the source and their respective bias.

HuffPost: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/26/net-neutrality-fcc-vote_n_6761702.html

Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/02/26/fcc-approves-sweeping-internet-regulation-plan-obama-accused-meddling/

Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/26/us-usa-internet-neutrality-idUSKBN0LU0CA20150226

BBC: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31638528

Here is an excerpt from the BBC article:

"The main changes for broadband providers are as follows:

• Broadband access is being reclassified as a telecommunications service, meaning it will be subject to much heavier regulation
• Broadband providers cannot block or speed up connections for a fee
• Internet providers cannot strike deals with content firms, known as paid prioritisation, for smoother delivery of traffic to consumers
• Interconnection deals, where content companies pay broadband providers to connect to their networks, will also be regulated
• Firms which feel that unjust fees have been levied can complain to the FCC. Each one will be dealt with on a case by case basis
• All of the rules will also apply to mobile providers as well as fixed line providers
• The FCC won't apply some sections of the new rules, including price controls"

It sounds like it is now official: the FCC has voted to make the Internet a Public Utility, supporting Net Neutrality. But before I jump for joy, I'm asking myself, "What exactly does this mean?"

I know what it doesn't mean: ISP's won't be able to throttle data, and they won't be able to package together access to websites for additional fees, as they do with television channel packages. That's great, in my opinion. Even though I'm a Libertarian and I believe strongly in freedom, I know that that would have a seriously negative impact on the Internet, and especially for people like us who rely on it on a daily basis as our livelihoods.

The problem that I am find is that what they voted on contains ~322 pages of new regulations for the Internet. I have no idea what is in those 322 pages, and I doubt anyone who voted on it does either. The democrats are loving it, while the republicans are calling it, "Obamacare for the Internet". My mind works more in the direction of, there must be pros and cons. I'm just very curious as to what those pros and cons are, and what this will actually mean for us in the online marketing industry, as well as anyone who works on the Internet.

I'm not looking for any answers, and I'm especially not looking for a political or biased debate. But I think there should be a place where we can discuss this issue, because it has the potential to be extremely important to us.

Please share you thoughts, findings, and research here where we can discuss them. I'm looking forward to learning from you all, and I hope I can add some useful insights to this conversation.

Once more: please, do not turn this into a political debate - this is not the place for it. Please keep it to how Net Neutrality and Internet as a Public Utility will affect the Internet and Online Marketing landscape for us, our clients, and our customers.

I probably had at least 5 more phone calls with people about SSL yesterday after I posted here. Ends up WP Engine overestimated the time, and they think it'll add less than half a second which I can deal with. I also learned that the certificate won't really affect speed.

I decided to allow my clients to choose which route they want to go with, a $50 SV from GeoTrust, a $300 EV from GeoTrust, or a $1000 EV from Symantec. I explained to them the main difference between the $300 vs $1000 option is really just the name, and how visitors trust the brands.

My next dilemma is whether or not to go 100% HTTPS. I am leaning towards it - I just don't know if it's overkill or not. I'm assuming 100% is the long-term ideal route. If, for example, I have an e-mail opt-in in the footer or sidebar of all my pages, I guess it'd be best to secure all of the pages then. I'm assuming the only negative is a possible reduction in load time?

Thanks a lot for the awesome responses. I really feel like I'm getting a much clearer picture of this whole situation.

Thank you very much for that response, and for the links. I just finished reading through that Moz article in it's entirety. Between that and your response, I agree that the EV sounds like the ideal certificate to go with. Now here are my new questions:

Now I want to get an EV Certificate and I want to go 100% HTTPS site-wide, as these seem to be the most ideal combination, especially long-term for SEO. I just finished a long phone call with WP Engine regarding this situation. While they resell RapidSSL Certificates, they do not offer EVs. I can still buy one from someone else and bring it over though. When I told him I want to go 100% HTTPS, they told me they can help me but it will add an increased load time because the site needs to make the handshake everytime a page loads. Right now my site loads at .1 seconds (WP Engine rocks!) and I don't really care if it doubles with 100% HTTPS. However, he told me it will add 1-2 seconds. That sounds like a lot to me. We went back and forth on this alot, but he stuck to it that generally it will add 1-2 seconds.

I noticed that Symantec sells $1500/yr SSL Certificates. The higher up you go in the tiers, the faster the speed, at least they claim. In this case, does this mean if I want my site to still load at .1 seconds with 100% HTTPS I have to pay $1500/yr? If so, that leads me to this question: how is it possible that Google wants your site to load under .25 seconds, yet they want your site to be 100% HTTPS? I mean, if I have to pay $1500, it is what it is, and that will definitely separate the big boys from everyone else - and my clients might be fine with that. But something else is leading me to believe that something in this overall equation is not right - I must be missing something or have something wrong here.

I am in the process of moving all of my client's websites to HTTPS. I have a client with an SSL certificate through GoDaddy for an e-commerce site, and my host WP Engine offers them for $50/year each. This has been fine, but now I am trying to move about a dozen sites over and I'm just trying to figure out the best, most ideal way possible to do this. I could just go through WP Engine and pay them for the certificates, but after doing research on different SSL providers, I've totally confused myself. I have seen a wide range of prices for certificates, but I can't tell if it's just BS or there is actual value. I'm talking about a $10 certificate vs a $250 certificate through Symantec.

Aside from that, I have found a few different types of certificates: single domain certificates, wild-card certificates for subdomains, and a multi-domain certificate. I would love to buy one multi-domain certificate that covers all of my websites - but I'm not sure what the pros and cons are of doing this, specifically in regards to SEO. Can anyone explain what the pros and cons are for these in my specific situation?

I'd love to hear any recommendations for my situation, and if there is something else I am missing that is important, please share!

I thought it was just me, but looks like everyone is being affected by the redirect loop.

I wanted to get everyone's thoughts on the new domain extensions that are now available. I'm considering buying a couple .lawyer and .attorney domains for clients. I noticed when I tried to buy these I was asked for verification if we're going to be offering legal services through the site. That led me to think that it may be possible in the future that with this verification, if it's required, that means that not just anybody can have these domain names. That leads me to think that it's possible that these domains may benefit from users searching for terms with "lawyer" or "attorney" in their search term. I haven't seen anything in terms of these domain extensions and SEO yet, but I'd like to know your thoughts as to how these will be treated in the future. I can imagine these will be more valuable than the old .net, .us, .info, etc., domains.

I reported similar issues with many of my reports. They told me they are dealing with DDOS attacks which are affecting the reports.

It's hard to say "how much" but it will be important as it will result in duplicate content if you don't redirect the page. If you're asking how much link juice it'd be worth, it'd depend on the authority of the page.

Here are some articles to read:

• http://moz.com/blog/expectations-and-best-practices-for-moving-to-or-launching-a-new-domain
• http://moz.com/blog/seo-guide-how-to-properly-move-domains
• https://yoast.com/move-wordpress-blog-domain-10-steps/
• http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-properly-move-wordpress-to-a-new-domain-without-losing-seo/