Scott Van Achte, Author at StepForth Web Marketing Inc.: Recent Episodes
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When working on a client site recently I encountered a strange issue that had me scratching my head. I took to Google and was unable to find a solution. I eventually sorted things out, solved my problem, and all was right in the world again. I want to share this issue with other SEO’s and Website owners incase something similar happens to you, as well as with ScreamingFrog incase they see this and are able to prevent this from happening to someone else.
Part of my regular SEO routine with client sites is running Screaming Frog and checking for issues with response codes. This time I encountered something I had never seen before. Two internal URLs on the clients site were returning both 200 OK and 404 Not Found codes! I found that this clients necklaces page and their opal rings page were returning multiple statuses. This of course makes no sense. A page can not be both found and not found, yet this is exactly what I was seeing! Screenshot below.
Of course this drove me crazy, but I like a good mystery every now and then!
My investigation into this started with a manual check of the two URLs in question to see if the page was in fact loading, and of course both loaded just fine. My ‘Link Redirect Trace‘ Chrome extension confirmed as well that both returned a 200 OK status.
I next checked a couple random “http header checker” tools that I found with Google. All tools also returned a 200 OK status. Finally I dove into Google Search Console and the Inspect URL Tool. This tool returned nothing out of the ordinary!
It seemed that the issue was either related to a problem with Screaming Frog OR a really odd problem with the website itself.
My next step (which in hindsight should have been my first step!) was to trace how Screaming Frog was finding this 404 error in the first place. By the image above you can see that for the one /necklaces URL they located 682 links to the URL version with the 200 OK status, but only 4 inlinks to the version they were saying was a 404! So I decided to check that out. Why didn’t I look there first! In screaming frog you can click on the address and see more information such as URL details, inlinks and more. When I clicked on the first link I stumbled onto my answer. The URL Encoded Address infact had a %0A appended to the end of it! It seemed that both of these two pages had some blog post links that for some reason were incorrect and contained this extra code.
Had I looked here first I would have found my solution. The actual URL that was returning the 404 error was different than what was originally presented! I found the real problem and it was something that could be easily fixed! Looking at the inlinks tab I was able to easily find the pages that had the links containing this code and correct them right at their source. Problem solved!
What all this goes to show is that not all tools are perfect. Screaming Frog is awesome. It is a critical tool in my SEO arsenal that I use every single day. I would be lost without it or something like it. But sometimes there is room for improvement in even the best tools. Had the address in the initial report contained this %0A, then everything would have been perfectly clear from the very start. Instead I went down this small rabbit hole trying to trouble shoot what was happening.
To be fair, had I simply clicked on “URL Details” first I would have discovered the source sooner, but hey, what can I say, I’m human!
The post Screaming Frog Returning 200 and 404 Status for Single URL appeared first on StepForth Web Marketing Inc..
The post Google Page Experience Update Applies to Mobile Only appeared first on StepForth Web Marketing Inc..
The post Blog Post Indexing Issue with WIX – Solved appeared first on StepForth Web Marketing Inc..
On October 03, Google posted a notification about an important upcoming update to Google Chrome. In their Google Security Blog, they announced a security update that will impact websites that have not correctly converted their sites to HTTPS. Google and the rest of the web have been moving toward this change for years. Google first […]
The post The Importance of HTTPS and Website Security with the Newest Updates In Google Chrome appeared first on StepForth Web Marketing Inc..
Something that frustrates me is the onslaught of SPAM SEO emails from companies and individuals phishing for one’s information. I often receive forwards from clients sending me these emails asking me to look into the claims, or suggesting that we must be missing something in our campaign if these other companies are pointing out deficiencies. […]
The post SEO Spam Emails appeared first on StepForth Web Marketing Inc..
John and Ross welcome fellow SEO veterans Doc Sheldon and David Harry on the show to discuss a frighteningly impressive website hack that is designed to hijack SEO results. The discussion moves into other interesting findings in SEO audits, improving page speed, and more. This Feb 12, 2018 SEO 101 podcast is available now: listen […]
The post SEO Audits & SEO Hijacking | Ep 315 appeared first on StepForth Web Marketing Inc..
Google My Businesses Q&A is the topic of Discussion as Ross Dunn and John Carcutt welcome back Mike Blumenthal from GetFiveStars.com. They discuss Google Updates GMB Websites to Include Posts as they Pass 1.25 Million Sites Created and how My Business Now Officially Supports Video. We also learn about a PowerPoint presentation of his Q&A […]
The post Google My Business and Q&A with Mike Blumenthal appeared first on StepForth Web Marketing Inc..
On this first episode of 2018, John and Ross discuss the changes related to the December 12th Google Maccabee Update and a future rumoured update. They also delve into the first official release of Google Assistant & Voice Search Guidelines and what they mean for SEO. Lastly, a few pieces of relevant news from John […]
The post Google Algorithm Updates & Voice Search Guidelines appeared first on StepForth Web Marketing Inc..
Today on SEO 101 John and Dave run down the latest in internet technology and programming. Google has confirmed with Search Engine Land that it has made a change to the way it displays snippets in search results. A snippet is the description of a page shown below the URL in an organic search result […]
The post Snippets, Local SEO Myths & Googles SEO Starter Guide appeared first on StepForth Web Marketing Inc..
Ross Dunn and guest Joy Hawkins discuss the latest in local SEO on Google. Some topics discussed: the ridiculous power that business titles have, to Yext’s new vertical push, to JSON-LD, street address formatting, home service ads, Google Posts API, and much more. This October 30, 2017 SEO 101 podcast is available now: listen or […]
The post Local SEO Tips & News with Guest Co-Host Joy Hawkins | SEO 101 appeared first on StepForth Web Marketing Inc..
John and Ross discuss the emerging powerhouse that is blockchain technology (yup, they geeked out again) and it’s potential impact on everything from SEO to SEM and more. They also discussed Google Tag Manager, AJAX indexing, Google My Business and answered 3 excellent questions from our awesome SEO 101 Community. This October 23, 2017 SEO […]
The post Everything from Blockchain and SEO to Great Q&A appeared first on StepForth Web Marketing Inc..