url removal - Support

Resolved Irene RF
2 years, 10 months ago

Rank Math free

Hi,

I have an issue as follows:

I recently changed the theme and also deleted some plugins. So when Google is crawling the site gets an error 500 instead of 400 for the not found files. This list will be longer and became a nightmare. I already sent a support ticket to Cloudways but as they didn’t resolve this issue 3 years ago I am not confident that they will do it now.

The issue:
I have this issue since 2019.

GSC is detecting error 500 when searching for not found files instead of error 404.

The error explained:
I use Cloudways hosting.
Two levels of not found files produces error 500
One level of not found gives error 400
Error 500 instead error 400: there is a sort of incompatibility with wordpress multisite code in the htaccess file, and server configuration.

My question is:

Can I use the URL removal tool to remove this kind of URL?
I know that these are not indexed URLS, but so many error 500 makes the site look very bad.

Any other workaround?
Thanks

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

Reinelle
2 years, 10 months ago
Hello,

Thank you for contacting Rank Math and bringing your concern to our attention. I’m sorry for any inconvenience this issue may have caused you.

From your screenshot, it seems that search engines are crawling your wp-content directory. You can add this rule in your robots.txt so they will be disallowed:
```
User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-content/
```
Once done, give Google some time to recrawl your site and let us know if the issue still persists.

I hope that helps.

Thank you.
Irene RF
2 years, 10 months ago

Rank Math free
Hi,

Thanks for your answer.

maybe it’s better to allow access to uploads.
```
User-Agent: *
Allow: /wp-content/uploads/
Disallow: /wp-content/plugins/
Disallow: /wp-content/themes/
Disallow: /wp-admin/
```
However I always thought blocking the wp-content to Google was discouraged. That it was bad idea for SEO.
Irene RF
2 years, 10 months ago

Rank Math free
Based in your suggestion, I decide to block exactly the missing files at list until i can fix the server issue.
```
User-agent: *
Disallow:
Disallow: /wp-content/plugins/onesignal-free-web-push-notifications/
Disallow: /wp-content/cache/
Disallow: /wp-content/themes/hueman/
```
What do you think?
Miguel
2 years, 10 months ago

Hello,

That robots.txt sounds good to block the URLs that are showing on your website.

Usually when pages that don’t exist return a 5xx error it means that there’s some sort of redirection taking place when accessing those pages and the request couldn’t be processed by the server.

Also, since those errors are usually server-related you can enable the PHP and server logging and trigger the error by accessing one of the pages.

After that the server error log should populate with more information on the error and if you share that with us we can give further insights.

Looking forward to hearing back from you.

Irene RF
2 years, 10 months ago

Rank Math free

Hi Miguel,

I have a php error in the error log which is new.
[Sun Mar 20 19:23:33.278116 2022] [proxy_fcgi:error] [pid 30573:tid 140253180204800] [client 54.212.71.227:47682] 181.13.67.233 AH01071: Got error ‘PHP message: — triggered!’

I didn’t see this before, and the error 500 I have had for many years now.
I searched for this error message in the php site and it doesn’t exist.

Your help will be much appreciated
Irene

Miguel
2 years, 10 months ago

Hello,

Those pages are still returning an internal server error and as we indicated only by looking through the server error log we could see more information.

That is if the error logging is enabled on the website.

Please double check that PHP and server error logging is enabled and if you are not sure get in touch with your hosting provider about it.

Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do since these errors are originating from the server.

Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any other questions.

Irene RF
2 years, 10 months ago

Rank Math free

Thanks! what was causing the php error was the GP Ezoic child theme which I disable.
The debug is enabled and I don’t see any more errors.

However this didn’t fix what is triggering the error 500.
I am checking with Cloudways support once more. I have this error for 3 years now.
Thanks anyway.
Irene

Miguel
2 years, 10 months ago

Hello,

Glad that you could find out the cause of one of the issues and fixed it.

If you have any more questions about Rank Math don’t hesitate to get in touch.

We are here to help!

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

The ticket ‘url removal’ is closed to new replies.