How to delete the “asp-products” page?

Hi,

There is a URL created by this plugin that contains “asp-products”.

That URL belongs to the download link for the product created by the plugin. That name is part of the functionality of this plugin when downloading a product. Your question is similar to the following forum post question.

Kind regards

• This reply was modified 5 years, 7 months ago by mbrsolution.

Hi,

It is similar, but not the same.

I want to delete this URL. I don’t use it for anything and it is showing on my website’s Google results but serves no purpose to the user.

I left the corresponding field blank on the plugin’s settings, but the page is still showing and I cannot delete it from my WP dashboard because it is not there.

Hi Carlos.

Functionality to remove asp_products page has been added to the plugin per your request if I’m not mistaken. It doesn’t appear in NEW plugin installations anymore.

However, in order to remove this page in existing installations (like in your case), you just need to flush permalinks in WP. Google “WP flush permalinks”, it’s very easy procedure.

The reason why this wasn’t done by the plugin automatically is because flushing rewrite rules might be pretty resource-consuming (especially on big sites), so we decided not to do this for all sites.

PS: Here’s how to do it from inside your WP Admin Dashboard:

Step 1: In the main menu find “Settings > Permalinks”.
Step 2: Scroll down if needed and click “Save Changes”.
Step 3: Rewrite rules and permalinks are flushed.

Hi Alexander,

Thank you very much, I understand.

Just to be sure: this would not affect anything negatively on my site, correct? Like SEO / search engine rankings, site structure, etc. I’ve never done this before.

Kind regards,
Carlos.

It should not affect site structure or SEO rankings, to my knowledge. What it does is just refreshing permalinks structure and removing redundant items (like asp-products in this case).

Just to be on the safe side of things, do database backup before doing the flush. Then browse your site around to ensure everything looks proper. If it is, then you’re done. Also check if /asp-products/ page is gone.

Alright, I will try that.

Thanks again!

Hi, where you successful with your test? Is your issue now resolved?

Thank you

Hi, thank you for checking in ??

The URL is still indexed on Google, but it returns a 404 error.

I waited to see if Google removed it from its index, but as of today, it still hasn’t, so I guess I need to wait a bit longer and check again?

What I am concerned about is that this problem (the URL being indexed but returning a 404 error) has been there for a few weeks now. Certainly the flushing that you mentioned didn’t work immediately…

Do you have any other suggestions?

Actually, it worked. If a page doesn’t exist – it returns 404 error.

I’m not a Google expert, but I know there is a way to tell Google not to index this page specifically. The reason why it tries to index it is probably because it presents somewhere in the sitemap which you submitted to Google. But once again, I’m not expert in this.

What I suggest you to do is to make 301 redirect from /asp-products/ page either to / or to the page with your actual product, for example.

But all of this is beyond the scope of our plugin definitely ??

The thing is that the 404 error was there before I did the flushing… :/

I will keep an eye on this in any case to see how it evolves.