404 Monitor Question?

#1006500
  • Resolved Qual Limited

    1 week, 1 day ago

    Rank Math free

    Hi Rank Math,

    Using your excellent plugin we have found some interesting but dangerous 404 links from the 404 monitor.
    We have found out that these links are coming from other sites as backlinks but presenting as 404 errors across our site hurting our SEO. We believe it’s a the dreaded “Pharma Attack” on our site.

    What would you recommend we do next, as we keep using your 404 monitor as a guideline to see dangerous broken links?

    Would you like any more information about this problem?

    Look forward to your reply.

    Dean

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • RankBot

    1 week, 1 day ago

    Hello,

    We apologize for the issue you are facing with the 404 errors on your site. Thank you for raising this concern.

    When you encounter 404 errors that are caused by backlinks from other sites, it’s important to analyze the source of these links. Here are some steps you can take:

    1. Identify the Source: Use the Referer field in the Advanced 404 Monitor to identify where the broken links are coming from. This will help you understand if they are from legitimate sites or spammy sources.
      Rank Math captures Referrer in Advanced 404 Monitor

    2. Contact the Site Owners: If the links are from reputable sites, consider reaching out to the site owners to inform them of the broken links so they can update them.

    3. Disavow Links: If the links are from spammy or harmful sites, you may want to consider disavowing these links through Google Search Console. This tells Google not to consider these links when assessing your site’s SEO.

    4. Monitor Regularly: Continue using the 404 Monitor to keep track of any new 404 errors that may arise. This will help you stay proactive in managing your site’s SEO health.

    5. Fix Internal Links: Ensure that there are no internal links on your site pointing to non-existent pages, as this can also contribute to 404 errors.

    If you have specific URLs or additional information about the errors, please include that in your reply, and a human agent from our support team will assist you further.

    We appreciate your diligence in using our tools to maintain your site’s SEO health.

    Looking forward to your response!

    Adetayo

    1 week, 1 day ago

    Hello,

    Thank you for contacting Rank Math support, and we regret the inconvenience caused.

    If you are seeing random 404s that you are sure are incorrect, it is likely that they are generated by spammers and bots. You can safely ignore them, as they don’t affect your site’s performance or ranking.

    However, please note that we only report the 404s. We do not have information on how or why they are generated. You can try to fix these errors by following this guide: https://rankmath.com/kb/fix-404-errors/

    To block out access to bots, you can use a service like Cloudflare (https://www.cloudflare.com/). Cloudflare is a web security and performance service that can protect your site from malicious bots and attacks.

    If you suspect any malicious activity on your site, you should scan your site for any malware or security issues and remove them as soon as possible. You can use the Sucuri plugin to help you with this.

    Here is also a guide on how to clean up your website: https://www.wordfence.com/docs/how-to-clean-a-hacked-wordpress-site-using-wordfence/

    Please you can refer to this guide to learn more about the advanced 404 monitors: https://rankmath.com/kb/monitor-404-errors/#how-to-use-404-monitor-information

    We hope this helps and please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

    Thank you.

    Qual Limited

    3 days, 20 hours ago

    Rank Math free

    Hi Adetayo,

    Thank you for your detailed response.

    We have implemented a malware scanner and found malware whcih has now been removed.

    Thanks again for the referening and response.

    Dean

    Princess

    3 days, 20 hours ago

    Hello,

    Glad that everything has been sorted out.

    Please feel free to reach out to us again in case you need any other assistance.

    We are here to help.

    Thank you.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

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