Serious SEO Issue I can't Fix...HELP!

23 replies
  • SEO
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Hey guys,

I've been building an authority site.

I installed myBB forum on the site and just left it sitting there while I was busy with other things. Sure enough, it got spammed to bejesus and back with a ton of poor backlinks pointing right back to my money site.

I deleted the forum and all of the missing URLs are showing 404 error. But in Webmaster tools, I still have something like 4000 crawl errors.

I tried submitting a 'remove URLs' in Webmaster tools but it didn't do anything. I'm pretty sure this is screwing up my rankings and I don't know how to fix it.

Please Help!!
#fixhelp #issue #seo #serious
  • Profile picture of the author K Mec
    Wait for some time it may take some time to remove link cache from their server...
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  • Profile picture of the author jhakasseo
    Put the list of spammy backlinks in robots.txt and upload to server.
    Then wait for some days google will not count those backlinks and de index all of it from SERP.
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  • Profile picture of the author nik0
    Banned
    Originally Posted by vtotheyouknow View Post

    Hey guys,

    I've been building an authority site.

    I installed myBB forum on the site and just left it sitting there while I was busy with other things. Sure enough, it got spammed to bejesus and back with a ton of poor backlinks pointing right back to my money site.

    I deleted the forum and all of the missing URLs are showing 404 error. But in Webmaster tools, I still have something like 4000 crawl errors.

    I tried submitting a 'remove URLs' in Webmaster tools but it didn't do anything. I'm pretty sure this is screwing up my rankings and I don't know how to fix it.

    Please Help!!
    Normally they get removed within 24 hours.

    Did you have the forum installed on a sub domain perhaps? Webmasters can't remove those with that tool.
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  • Profile picture of the author Fernando1954
    Had the same problem with one of my sites after it had been hacked, was showing 6000 + crawl errors.
    Asked on another forum and nik0 suggested submitting a new sitemap did this and the errors have disappeared now.
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  • Profile picture of the author danielcollins
    Originally Posted by vtotheyouknow View Post

    Hey guys,

    I've been building an authority site.

    I installed myBB forum on the site and just left it sitting there while I was busy with other things. Sure enough, it got spammed to bejesus and back with a ton of poor backlinks pointing right back to my money site.

    I deleted the forum and all of the missing URLs are showing 404 error. But in Webmaster tools, I still have something like 4000 crawl errors.

    I tried submitting a 'remove URLs' in Webmaster tools but it didn't do anything. I'm pretty sure this is screwing up my rankings and I don't know how to fix it.

    Please Help!!
    Click on the right side of error(Fix it) and then wait for some day. If you provide webmaster detail, then i can help you more.
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  • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
    Remove the directory using WMT, NOT the urls.

    By the way, I wouldn't be "redirecting" anything at the main domain if it means pushing over shitty links.

    Oh and in future, always set a robots.txt file and block the directory while you're not using it.
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by John Romaine View Post

      Remove the directory using WMT, NOT the urls.

      By the way, I wouldn't be "redirecting" anything at the main domain if it means pushing over shitty links.

      Oh and in future, always set a robots.txt file and block the directory while you're not using it.
      He can't as it's a sub domain.
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      • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
        Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

        He can't as it's a sub domain.
        Are you sure?

        I think it might be a case of adding and verifying the subdomain within GWMT and then you *should* get the option to remove it?

        I could be wrong though....(interesting question)
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        • Profile picture of the author nik0
          Banned
          Originally Posted by John Romaine View Post

          Are you sure?

          I think it might be a case of adding and verifying the subdomain within GWMT and then you *should* get the option to remove it?

          I could be wrong though....(interesting question)
          I'm sure as I dealt with this a couple of weeks ago.

          I just tried to add a sub domain to webmasters and it doesn't give any errors:

          1. Download this HTML verification file. [google058a4c97d4b753ef.html]
          2. Upload the file to hxxp://test.seoservicegroup.com/
          3. Confirm successful upload by visiting hxxp://test.seoservicegroup.com/google058a4c97d4b753ef.html in your browser.

          So perhaps that would work yes.

          Back then my problem however was that hxxp://test.seoservicegroup.com was indexed, not a page or sub directory.
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      • Profile picture of the author UMS
        Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

        He can't as it's a sub domain.
        Of course he can. So long as the sub-domain is in a separate folder, you can create a robots.txt file for it.
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        • Profile picture of the author nik0
          Banned
          Originally Posted by UMS View Post

          Of course he can. So long as the sub-domain is in a separate folder, you can create a robots.txt file for it.
          Learn to read before you comment.
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          • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
            Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

            Learn to read before you comment.
            lol.

            The issue isn't with the robots.txt file, it's whether or not Google provides this feature inside WMT.
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            • Profile picture of the author vtotheyouknow
              Originally Posted by Fernando1954 View Post

              Had the same problem with one of my sites after it had been hacked, was showing 6000 + crawl errors.
              Asked on another forum and nik0 suggested submitting a new sitemap did this and the errors have disappeared now.
              I submitted a new sitemap but I'm still showing 3000+ crawl errors a week later.


              Originally Posted by danielcollins View Post

              Click on the right side of error(Fix it) and then wait for some day. If you provide webmaster detail, then i can help you more.
              Tried it, didn't work.


              Originally Posted by John Romaine View Post

              Remove the directory using WMT, NOT the urls.

              By the way, I wouldn't be "redirecting" anything at the main domain if it means pushing over shitty links.

              Oh and in future, always set a robots.txt file and block the directory while you're not using it.
              Tried that as well. Didn't seem to work.


              Just to clarify, what exactly I did was delete the entire subfolder (www.mysite.com/forum).

              If I Google site:www.mysite.com the spammy URLs from the forum don't show up but the crawl errors still show up in WMT and my rankings aren't what they should be given my backlink profile and the weakness of competition for several keywords.

              Just for the record: I have NOT created a robots.txt file for my root domain NOR for the folder containing the forum (because I deleted it).

              Thanks for all your help so far guys.

              So what's the consensus, how do I fix this...?
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          • Profile picture of the author UMS
            Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

            Learn to read before you comment.
            You previously posted that he can't use a robots.txt file because it was a sub-domain. So which part of that do think is incorrect?

            Originally Posted by nik0

            Originally Posted by John Romaine

            Oh and in future, always set a robots.txt file and block the directory while you're not using it.
            He can't as it's a sub domain.
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            • Profile picture of the author nik0
              Banned
              Originally Posted by UMS View Post

              You previously posted that he can't use a robots.txt file because it was a sub-domain. So which part of that do think is incorrect?
              Enjoy selective quoting.





              Originally Posted by John Romaine View Post

              Remove the directory using WMT, NOT the urls.
              He can't as it's a sub domain.
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  • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
    Well now that you've added a subdomain, do you have the option to remove it under the "remove url" option in WMT?
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by John Romaine View Post

      Well now that you've added a subdomain, do you have the option to remove it under the "remove url" option in WMT?
      I haven't added it as I don't have a sub domain.

      Besides what should the url format look like when submitting it, they don't accept the test.domain.com format.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
    Originally Posted by vtotheyouknow View Post

    Hey guys,

    I've been building an authority site.

    I installed myBB forum on the site and just left it sitting there while I was busy with other things. Sure enough, it got spammed to bejesus and back with a ton of poor backlinks pointing right back to my money site.

    I deleted the forum and all of the missing URLs are showing 404 error. But in Webmaster tools, I still have something like 4000 crawl errors.

    I tried submitting a 'remove URLs' in Webmaster tools but it didn't do anything. I'm pretty sure this is screwing up my rankings and I don't know how to fix it.

    Please Help!!
    1. You deleted urls
    2. All 404s now

    As far as the crawl errors go in WMT. I think you just "select all" and "mark as fixed". Its not automated on Googles end. If there are any more errors or the ones now marked fixed, are found again. WMT will tell you again.
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  • Profile picture of the author vtotheyouknow
    I've marked all as "fixed".

    I noticed some of the crawl errors were detected as shortly as a few days ago, even though the forum has been deleted for a good month.

    Still not sure if this is the full remedy...?
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by vtotheyouknow View Post

      I've marked all as "fixed".

      I noticed some of the crawl errors were detected as shortly as a few days ago, even though the forum has been deleted for a good month.

      Still not sure if this is the full remedy...?
      That's odd, only thing I can think of is that you still have the old sitemap loaded in webmasters.
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      • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
        Originally Posted by vtotheyouknow View Post

        I've marked all as "fixed".

        I noticed some of the crawl errors were detected as shortly as a few days ago, even though the forum has been deleted for a good month.

        Still not sure if this is the full remedy...?
        Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

        That's odd, only thing I can think of is that you still have the old sitemap loaded in webmasters.
        Well if you don't actually do any sort of 30* redirection or Robots block, the urls still exist to be found and crawled.
        In this situation Robots would be best as you don't want to pass on any of the spammy links through a 30*. Or you could 30* it all to Google.com
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