Weird URLs giving 404 errors

  • I’m not sure if this is theme related or WP related but here’s my problem: I use Flexibility 3 theme and for some reason I’m getting weird URLs listed as 404 errors in the ‘Smartphone’ section of GWT.

    I realize that Flex 3 is a nonresponsive theme so I understand there will be some crawl errors as a result. But it’s what the URLs listed look like that I can’t figure out. There’s no point including my actual domain name here because nothing’s amiss on the site itself; these weird URLs only show up in my GWT acct.

    But to give you an idea of what’s happening I’ll use a ‘dummy’ URL as an example:

    Suppose the URL should be: https://www.mydomainname.com/do-you-like-oranges?/

    But the 404 error has it listed as:
    https://www.mydomainname.com/do-you-like-oranges?/www.mydomainname.com/they-are-really-good/

    So every 404 error that’s listed has:
    1) the domain name repeated.
    2) One specific URL that’s a completely different post on my site added after the repeated domain name. It’s always the same URL added to every error listed.

    Can anybody tell me what’s going on and how I can fix this?

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)

  • Check the “do-you-like-oranges” page for a link to “they-are-really-good” that is missing the “https://” in the front of it.

    Thread Starter turtledove100

    (@turtledove100)

    Sorry karpstrucking — I’m not following you. Could you please clarify what you mean?

    Go to the page that has the url “do-you-like-oranges” and edit it. Look for a link within the content to another page like “they-are-really-good” – I predict you will find that the link is missing the “https://” from the beginning.

    Thread Starter turtledove100

    (@turtledove100)

    Hey karpstrucking,
    Thanks for the clarification. I’ve already double checked all the links in the posts that are showing 404s and they’re all correct; none are missing the ‘https://’ so that’s not the issue but thanks for your suggestion.

    And the really odd thing to me in all this is that the URL that’s added on (and shouldn’t be) to the end of each URL listed as a 404 error is the exact same URL; its not like each 404 has a different URL added on — they all have the exact same one.

    Any other suggestions?

    I see that kind of thing every once in a while, and I am guessing that is just some kind of scraper or whatever tacking things together to see what might happen. I know nothing about how ‘bots and such look for vulnerabilities, but doing stuff like that to test security would make logical sense to me.

    Would you mind giving us one of the links?

    Thread Starter turtledove100

    (@turtledove100)

    leejosepho — I’m not sure how this could relate to a security issue as these are google’s results from GWT. Could you please expand a bit on your explanation?

    karpstrucking — I originally used dummy URLs but I’ll post the actual ones now and hopefully that’ll help you help me. ??

    So here’s the link to one of the posts:

    https://www.digyourdog.com/portable-wireless-dog-fences-travel-pet/

    And instead of listing that URL as the 404 crawl error, here’s what GWT has listed:

    https://www.digyourdog.com/portable-wireless-dog-fences-travel-pet/www.digyourdog.com/petsafe-pif-300-wireless-containment-system-review

    So the domain name is repeated and another completely different URL is added onto the end. I realize that the 404 error is due to the fact that that URL does not exist on my site but I don’t understand why google has attached the extra domain name and totally unrelated URL of a completely different post to all these links.

    The ‘petsafe-pif-300-wireless-containment-system-review’ part of the listing is from this post:

    https://www.digyourdog.com/petsafe-pif-300-wireless-containment-system-review

    And it’s added onto the end of every single 404 error listed in my GWT ‘Smartphone’ section.

    I use Flexibility 3 theme and I’ve had one developer say he thinks this is being caused by some kind of bug in the theme but I haven’t been able to get any help from the Flexibility 3 developer or forum.

    leejosepho — I’m not sure how this could relate to a security issue as these are google’s results from GWT. Could you please expand a bit on your explanation?

    My thoughts there are merely guesses (or wrong assumptions stemming from some overall ignorance) related to that kind of 404 I occasionally see while working to deflect (redirect) certain malicious or undesirable traffic away even before it ever actually reaches my WordPress installations. And since those obviously cannot actually get anywhere, I did not mean to imply they are any actual danger even if they *might* be coming from malicious sources *testing* security in order to analyze its handlings of various things.

    Here is an example of my own from the Wordfence Security “Live traffic” (404) log this morning:

    Russian Federation tried to access non-existent page https://www.nnywriters.com/https:/www.ads-software.com/

    To the best of my knowledge, https:/www.ads-software.com/ is not present anywhere at that site.

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
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