Hi,
I had google seo plugin working perfectly, until I edited some of my thread categories/names. Once I did that, I began seeing lots of errors in google webmaster tools-> sitemaps.
I have a feeling this is a MyBB data handling problem and not a problem of the plugin, but I figured I'd ask here for a professional frostschutz opinion/fix.
It seems like once a forum and/or category is created, that database entry stays there, even if I edit or remove the category completely. Attached is the downloaded excel file of the errors directly from webmaster tools (sorry for zipping - MyBB wouldnt allow an upload of .xls files). It seems to be showing a 404 error for every category and thread that I've removed from the forum.
Whether it's a plugin issue, or a MyBB issue, this is something that I absolutely have to have rectified because if google is showing errors, I'll never get any "love" from them.
Thx! Sharon
Does Sitemap actually list items that are no longer there? Only then it would be a problem with the plugin / the database.
In general, seeing 404 errors for URLs that are no longer there is not strange. Google periodically checks if the stuff it indexed is actually still there (and if so, updates it), and if it isn't, it will kick them out of its index eventually. If you deleted categories / forums / threads, it's perfectly normal to have those turn up as 404 errors in Google Webmaster Tools.
Now that you ask, I see that there's only 1 of the errors on the 'In Sitemaps' tab. The sitemap is referring to another (Threads) sitemap, and the Threads sitemap has a reference to
http://www.co-mpr-ess-ion-stock-in-ginfo...read-Hello (remove the hyphens), which is a thread that no longer exists. Just to verify that there's an actual problem with it, I looked at the database tables on my host.... and I did a search for 'Introductions' (which was the name of the forum where the post was originally. Of all the tables in my database, 'Introductions' only appears in 2 tables: mybb_adminlog (naturally), and in the mybb_google_seo table.
Do you think it's safe for me to just delete it from the table right in my MySql database? (Scary to play with this stuff!!)
Thanks!
Old / outdated entries in the google_seo table are normal, they do not hurt (apart from occupying a little bit of database space). The plugin uses them to be able to do redirection for old name -> new name, and will automatically update the entries if there is ever a new item claiming the old names.
Ok, so how would I make sure the sitemap doesn't include links to deleted threads (as it does now)? It's only one instance of it, but I might as well fix it. What should I do?
Unless it's actually still in the Sitemap (not according to webmaster tools, but the real thing), nothing.
Google does not open all URLs it finds in the sitemap instantly, it does this over time. If in the meantime one of the sites vanished it will list it as 404 error... until it re-fetches the sitemap anyway.
Errors in WMT are just a pointer, you have to keep in mind that in general, the data of Google Webmaster Tools may be outdated. Google does not fetch your sitemap and all your pages instantly all the time, if you had an item in your sitemap, and then a couple of hours later that item does not exist anymore, WMT will list it as error even if (the updated) sitemap does not actually contain that item anymore.
I understand completely (and thanks for such detail) however in this specific case, wmt looks to be 100% accurate... In wmt -> crawler errors -> In Sitemaps , there is a 404 error for a thread link that IS actually in the sitemap, yet the thread has been deleted from the forum (it's not in sitemap-index.xml, but it's in one of the sitemaps that's referenced in the sitemap-index.xml). I verified the existence of the problem by pointing my browser to the xml file and I saw it in there.
To see it for yourself, com-pre-ssions-tocki-nginfo.com/sitemap-index.xml (remove hyphens) references another sitemap: /sitemap-threads.xml?page=1 . That sitemap references /Thread-Hello which is a thread that no longer is in existence.
then it must have an entry in the mybb_threads table after all. the error reflects this too, it says invalid forum, when usually non existing threads say "The specified thread does not exist"...
Hmmm... yes, it does. I didnt see it before because I was searching only for 'Introductions' which was the name of the forum that 'Hello' thread was in.... but you're right, 'Hello' has an entry in mybb_threads. So... should I just delete the reference from MySql admin panel? Or might that begin a host of other problems? See attached screenshot - I have a 'delete' option.
The real question here is, why are threads in the table that are supposed to be deleted... also do the posts of this thread still exist as well? In any case it does not seem to be a Google SEO issue unless leftover threads in the DB are supposed to happen for some strange reason... not much I can do to help, sorry