Who knows how to fix this? - HELP

[Littledogfashion]

Hello:

Here is the situation: I have a huge amount of 404 (Not Found) errors. To be exact, as of today the number is 4,028. I had tried to fix this issue once before but obviously that did not work.

So I filed a support ticket. While I was waiting, I went to the webmaster Google forum to see what I could find out. During a discussion with one of the folks over there I was informed that he/she thought it was the htaccess file that was causing this phenomenon since that file can not be put on an ISS server which is where I am. Needless to say I have no clue what this means or where to start to fix it and when I asked the question I was told that it was beyond the scope of the discussion and to ask 3d for help.

Support came back quickly on this issue and disagreed. The feeling was that Google was trying to access an old file and I was to submit a new sitemap and to give it time.

I did exactly as instructed, but as of today the numbers climbed from 3,796 to 4, 028 and now I really don't know what to do.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Uta

[celebra1]

A Quick Thought

404's are page not found, right? Since you make-to-order items, once they're sold the url would be gone too. If that's the case, do the math:

4, 028 - 3,796 = 232.

Did you sell 232 items that are no longer available? Did you move products into different categories/subcategories? I'm tired, so I may be thinking about this wrong. Regardless, there is an article in the Knowledge Base on how to create a 404 page. Good luck.

[Littledogfashion]

Celebra:

You are correct 404 are items not found. Support told me yesterday that it is my 301 redirects that did not work and they caused this to occur. Why now, I have no idea. they worked fine before.

Support gave me instructions on how to fix this and I implemented it right away. I guess I have to wait now to see if it works. I wish I knew how long it might take before I see a change.

I am really concerned about this because I read somewhere that you get treated poorly by Google if you have too many of these 404s and, obviously 4000 and bit is WAY too many.

If anybody here could post some suggestions or share experiences, I would love to read them.

Thanks,
Uta

[elightbox]

Uta, would it be possible to post some examples of the 404 errors and how you are trying to fix them with the 301 redirects. It is hard to offer advice going blind.
Each 404 should either have a 301 or you can let it die off. The problem is if you have a messed up site map, or feed, then you have to fix that to get rid of the 404s

[Littledogfashion]

Elightbox:

Thanks for posting.

Here is what I have done so far:

1. Cleaned up my sitemap cache
2. Have a new sitemap submitted, but still show 12 errors.
3. Deleted the original redirect file according to support instructions
4. set up new file for redirects according to support instructions
5. imported that file
6. Support said it looked fine and yet...

my 404 errors are now up to 4700 and a bit.

My feed is done by GoDataFeed so that should not be an issue.

here is an example:

http://www.littledogfashion.com/serv...7374&smode=add

At first I thought it is an old shopping cart (because of the word cart in there) but I really don't have a clue. What is even more surprising is why they are showing up now. I moved everything over in June of last year and had no problems. Now I do.

I sure would like to fix this permanently.

Thanks for taking a look at it.

Uta

[elightbox]

Uta,
Thanks for posting the link. I did a Google search on the servlet/cart/category= , and it appears that this is a Prostores URL

My guess is that you have an old sitemap with the Prostores URLs out there somewhere that Google might be accessing, or a feed that is being sent to Google with the old URLs.
Check your feeds to make sure they do not have this /servlet/cart in them.

Are you sure your old site is erased off of their servers. Once I moved servers, and many months later I found out the old site was still sitting there, however it was only accessible with the IP address not the URL, because I had changed the DNS to the new servers.

[elightbox]

Uta,
I thought maybe this type of URL will not work on the 3dcart redirects. I tested it on my site and it works just fine.

URL:
servlet/Cart?category=New&no=743&product_no=743&searchpath =28165&smode=add

Mapped URL:
(the xxxxxxxxx.html part in the 3dcart URL: http://www.littledogfashion/xxxxxxxxxx.html )

If you add this to the redirects, the bad URL above will never show up as a 404 again.

[Littledogfashion]

Good morning!

Yes, the old URL is a Prostores one. How do I check to see if my stuff has been erased?

And, I am not certain that I understand where I am supposed to put the http://littledogfashion.com/xxxxxhtml thing.

Here is how I "fixed" this:

Old URL:
/servlet/Cart?category=ALL&no=21&product_no=21&searchpath=8 &smode=add

New URL
/home.asp

Is this correct or do I need to change?

Thanks for your help.

Uta =)

[elightbox]

Here is how I "fixed" this:
Old URL:
/servlet/Cart?category=ALL&no=21&product_no=21&searchpath=8 &smode=add
New URL
/home.asp
Is this correct or do I need to change?

Yes that is correct. That is exactly what I meant.
You put that in Settings>General>Redirects. Click Add New, and enter the old one under URL and home.asp under "Mapped URL".

Skip the "/" in the begining. So, servlet/xxx not /servlet/xxx and home.asp not /home.asp

Also, it would be much better to actually map to the new URL of the actual product of the original URL. So if someone clicks on the old URL for a dog collar, they will be redirected to that item instead of your home page.
Using an Excel spread sheet and doing an import for the re-directs would be so much easier if you are doing more than a few.
If you have an old site map, or product index with product names and old urls it would help in creating a 301 Excel sheet with old and new urls. Save the sheet as a CSV and import into 3dcart.

How do I check to see if my stuff has been erased?

If you know your old IP address then you can enter it into the browser. I am sure if you dig around in your old setup e-mails, etc, you will find it. You can also contact your old host and make sure. Did you have an automated old feed that is still going??

[Littledogfashion]

I don't think I have any automated old feeds going.

What is difference between leaving the /servlet vs servlet or /home.asp vs home.asp?

The reason I ask is because support told me to put the / in and since I don't know any different, I did just that.

Also, if I redirect to the exact listing, wouldn't I have to figure out how is coded on 3d?

Thanks for educating me elightbox. I appreciate it very much.

Uta

[elightbox]

Uta. I am not sure, but I have over 4000 301s from when we moved our site and they all work perfectly. None have the / in the begining.

I tried
http://www.littledogfashion.com/serv...th=8&smode=add

and it does not work. I still get a 404. Work on this one url until it works. Then you will know what to do.
After you get one working, do an export and you will see the correct format to build your new file.

Also, if I redirect to the exact listing, wouldn't I have to figure out how is coded on 3d?

Yes you do. It is quite a bit of work to create good 301s. It took me about day to map our old URLs to the new ones and then I did a few revisions. At least now you can do the importing yourself and do it over if you need to. I had to pay 3dcart to do the import for us before this feature was available.

You can do an export of your products with the URL, then you will have a list. You can do a Custom Product Export set with Catalogid, id, product name, url_link, and filename. (if you do not use custom file names, then you can skip the latter)

[Littledogfashion]

That is a GREAT idea!!! I am soo worried about what this is doing to my traffic. It is awful when you don't have a clue.

I will work on one to see what I need to do. Please post again if you think of something else you think I need to know.

Thanks,
Uta

[Littledogfashion]

elightbox:

Do you have any other suggestions on how to fix this? I tried to change the redirects as you suggested, but the system will not allow me to save.

I also re-opened my ticket for this. As of this afternoon my 404 errors are 4,876 (sigh).

Thanks,
Uta