"URls not followed"

[idandone]

Hi Guys,

My site lost its ranking.

I checked GWT and saw my site was scanned lately and my homepage has the following crawling error:
URL not followed?

Is than can explain that?
Why I got that strange error message?

Thanks.

[incrediblehelp]

What is the domain?

[deepsand]

Generally, this is the result of a re-direct having failed.

You might want to begin by checking your headers, using a tool such as the one at Check Server Headers Tool - HTTP Status Codes Checker (http://www.seoconsultants.com/tools/headers.asp)

[jawn_tech]

If it's the seo ranking tool link, I definitely see the dilemma it would pose.

Hope you get your rank back soon!

[idandone]

Thanks guys....

I believe it a server error, because we had a server failure last week.

The url is simple: http://www.mysite.com (with out any query strings or somethings).

I guess Google spider scanned my site at the same time.

[deepsand]

The "simplicity" of the URL is in no way indicative of how your server responds to requests. I would still recommend that you check your headers.

[idandone]

The "simplicity" of the URL is in no way indicative of how your server responds to requests. I would still recommend that you check your headers.

Thanks deepsand for the tool and for the assistant. unfortunately, I don't know what is exactly the "Server Header"
Where can I get more information about it.



These are the Headers diagnosing results for the url http://www.mysite.com:

#1 Server Response: http://www.mysite.com
HTTP Status Code (http://www.seoconsultants.com/tools/headers.asp#status-codes): HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Connection: close
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2008 08:15:16 GMT
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
X-AspNet-Version: 2.0.50727
Set-Cookie: ASP.NET_SessionId=rurwrg3fgawo0ob53khbdp45; path=/; HttpOnly
Cache-Control: private
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 26719

[deepsand]

An HTTP Header is "A record sent by clients and servers communicating with each other via the HTTP protocol. The header is a stream of text that may be sent without any content following it or with the content that it describes. There are headers specific to requests and to responses and others that are used for both client and server to describe or query the content or environment."

A Client, or Request Header is "The information, in the form of a text record, that a user’s browser sends to a web server containing the details of what the browser wants and will accept back from the server. The request header also contains the type, version and capabilities of the browser that is making the request so that server returns compatible data.

Upon receipt of the request header, the server will return an HTTP response header to the client that is attached to the file(s) being sent. "

A Server, or Reponse Header is "The information, in the form of a text record, that a web server sends back to a client’s browser in response to receiving an HTTP request. The response header contains the date, size and type of file that the server is sending back to the client and also data about the server itself. The header is attached to the files being sent back to the client."

A Server Header commonly contains the following:

1 ) Method
2 ) HTTP Version w/ Status Code
3 ) URI
4 ) Date
5 ) Connection
6 ) Authorization
7 ) If-Modified-Since
8 ) Content Length
9 ) Content Type

[deepsand]

The Google crawl report that you provided shows 35 instances of Not found. Of the 25 URLs not followed, of which there are but 22 unique URLs, all show a Redirect error.

Using the Batch Processing version of the cited Header Checker tool, I submitted all 22 URLs. All returned a Status Code of "200 OK," with the exception of the following:

1) /seo-tools.aspx - 500 Internal Server Error
2) /show.aspx - 302 Found
3) /exactfactortest/directories.aspx - 301 Moved Permanently
4) /exactfactortest/registersite.aspx - 301 Moved Permanently
5) /exactfactortest/search-engine-placement.aspx - 301 Moved Permanently
6) /exactfactortest/websites-design.aspx - 301 Moved Permanently
7) /~/default.aspx - 404 Not Found

Looking at the date span of the errors reported on the crawl report, 07 NOV thru 20 NOV, the reported "Redirect errors," and the current of 301/302s, I'd venture to quess that this site was undergoing changes during the noted 2 week time period.

The single 404 error, item no. 7, probably owes to a typographical error on one of the sites internal pages, an error that may or may not still exist. You'll need to search each page's source code for the character string in question.

As for the 500 error, item no. 1, if that persists you'll need to consult with your host.

As all now looks good, with the exception of the 2 noted items, you might want to monitor both your server logs, for sign of Google's bot(s), and page request statistics, for signs of same or similar errors, to make sure that the problem is not ongoing.

[Janna122003]

Hi Guys,

My site lost its ranking.

I checked GWT and saw my site was scanned lately and my homepage has the following crawling error:
URL not followed?

Is than can explain that?
Why I got that strange error message?

Thanks.

Try to check the url where you get the error. Maybe it's not crawlable or broken link.

[stevewaganer]

An HTTP Header is "A record sent by clients and servers communicating with each other via the HTTP protocol. The header is a stream of text that may be sent without any content following it or with the content that it describes. There are headers specific to requests and to responses and others that are used for both client and server to describe or query the content or environment."

A Client, or Request Header is "The information, in the form of a text record, that a user’s browser sends to a web server containing the details of what the browser wants and will accept back from the server. The request header also contains the type, version and capabilities of the browser that is making the request so that server returns compatible data.

Upon receipt of the request header, the server will return an HTTP response header to the client that is attached to the file(s) being sent. "

A Server, or Reponse Header is "The information, in the form of a text record, that a web server sends back to a client’s browser in response to receiving an HTTP request. The response header contains the date, size and type of file that the server is sending back to the client and also data about the server itself. The header is attached to the files being sent back to the client."

A Server Header commonly contains the following:

1 ) Method
2 ) HTTP Version w/ Status Code
3 ) URI
4 ) Date
5 ) Connection
6 ) Authorization
7 ) If-Modified-Since
8 ) Content Length
9 ) Content Type

Its really a nice and useful post

[ThomasSchulzMS]

If you want to find out broken link and redirect errors, you could try check this checking internal links (http://www.micro-sys.dk/products/website-analyzer/faq/website-analyze-links-checks/) article.

[full house]

definitely wrong redirect! better check your htaccess and do another 301 redirect.

[deepsand]

definitely wrong redirect!
What evidence is there to support this conclusion?

better check your htaccess and do another 301 redirect.
See http://www.webproworld.com/google-discussion-forum/74273-urls-not-followed.html#post403975 (http://www.webproworld.com/74273-urls-not-followed.html#post403975)

His Server is Microsoft-IIS/6.0; therefore, he has no htaccess file!

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Htaccess

[kronikmedia]

I am not sure why these errors exist. There are many online tools that can help you identify and pin point the source of these errors. Try searching on Google. Or better still try and find a solution on Google webmaster's blog.

[deepsand]

I am not sure why these errors exist. There are many online tools that can help you identify and pin point the source of these errors. Try searching on Google. Or better still try and find a solution on Google webmaster's blog.
As above stated, the very 1st thing to do is to check the Header Responses. In this case, such was sufficient for diagnosing the problem(s).