Textpattern CMS

#1 2006-05-21 22:27:32

Sootah

Member

Registered: 2006-05-04

Posts: 27

Issue with permalinks and 404 errors

The SE crawlers are hitting my site nicely, but there’s an issue:

http://www.tweaksforgeeks.com/category/Internet/HIVEConsole/HIVEConsole/Barts_PE_McAfee_Setup.html

That doesn’t exist. It doesn’t even <i>kinda</i> exist. That’s some weird combo of a page that I have on my site, as well as a directory I have on my site, as well as the textpattern structure.

Notice how it shows a page? That should be a 404 error!

Legit URL: http://www.tweaksforgeeks.com/Barts_PE_McAfee_Setup.html
Legit URL: http://www.tweaksforgeeks.com/HIVEConsole

Where that other odd combo is coming from I don’t know, nor do I know why it doesn’t give a 404 error. I’m using the /section/id/title style of permalink and only have the auto excerpt plugin and a captcha plugin for comments installed.

#2 2006-05-21 22:46:18

zem

Developer Emeritus

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-04-08

Posts: 2,579

Re: Issue with permalinks and 404 errors

What version of Textpattern are you running? A similar URL works correctly for me (404 error) with recent revs.

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Alex

#3 2006-05-21 23:09:51

Sootah

Member

Registered: 2006-05-04

Posts: 27

Re: Issue with permalinks and 404 errors

Latest version

#4 2006-05-22 01:40:06

zem

Developer Emeritus

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-04-08

Posts: 2,579

Re: Issue with permalinks and 404 errors

Ah, I think I can guess what’s going on: you have a category named ‘Internet’. /category/Internet is a valid Textpattern URL for that category. Textpattern ignores the extra /HIVEConsole/HIVEConsole/Barts_PE_McAfee_Setup.html junk after the category name, and just shows the Internet category (which contains no articles, by the look of it).

You could delete that category, if it’s superfluous – that should trigger a 404 error.

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Alex

#5 2006-05-22 05:23:08

Sootah

Member

Registered: 2006-05-04

Posts: 27

Re: Issue with permalinks and 404 errors

I deleted the Internet category and now it just shows the main page when I try to go to that URL.

I really really want it to 404 because I’m pretty sure it’ll start dicking with my search engine results/placement if every URL that is invalid just starts showing results for stuff (and the same results at that)

#6 2006-05-22 05:28:39

Sootah

Member

Registered: 2006-05-04

Posts: 27

Re: Issue with permalinks and 404 errors

Interesting.. Textpattern handles the /category/ folder in an odd way. The URL: http://www.tweaksforgeeks.com/Internet/HIVEConsole/HIVEConsole/Barts_PE_McAfee_Setup.html will throw a 404. But if it’s http://www.tweaksforgeeks.com/category/really/anything/can-go-here

Then it just displays the category if it matches something, or displays everything if it doesn’t. I really don’t want it to do this.

#7 2006-05-22 05:31:11

Sootah

Member

Registered: 2006-05-04

Posts: 27

Re: Issue with permalinks and 404 errors

Here’s come crawling from the logs:

<code>
5/22 1:33 am crawl-66-249-72-48.googlebot.com category/Internet/HIVEConsole/HIVEConsole/Dell_A94…
0_Print_Spool_Hangs.html
5/22 1:33 am crawl-66-249-72-48.googlebot.com category/Windows-XP/HIVEConsole/HIVEConsole/Extrac…
t_Windows_XP_CD_Key.html
5/22 1:33 am crawl-66-249-72-48.googlebot.com category/Windows-Vista/HIVEConsole/HIVEConsole/msn…
metal.dll_0x00000485.html
5/22 1:33 am crawl-66-249-72-48.googlebot.com category/Tips/HIVEConsole/HIVEConsole/Windows_Upda…
te_Error_0x800a0007.HTML
5/22 1:33 am crawl-66-249-72-48.googlebot.com category/News/HIVEConsole/HIVEConsole/Windows_Upda…
te_Error_0x800a0007.HTML
5/22 1:33 am crawl-66-249-72-48.googlebot.com category/Tips/HIVEConsole/HIVEConsole/Windows_Upda…
te_Error_0x800A01AE.html
5/22 1:33 am crawl-66-249-72-48.googlebot.com category/Windows-Vista/HIVEConsole/HIVEConsole/Mak…
e_Win_XP_Boot_Floppy.html
5/22 1:33 am crawl-66-249-72-48.googlebot.com category/Windows-XP/HIVEConsole/HIVEConsole/Clean_…
up_MSConfig_Entries.html
5/22 1:33 am crawl-66-249-72-48.googlebot.com category/News/HIVEConsole/HIVEConsole/Windows_Upda…
te_Error_0x800A01AE.html
5/22 1:33 am crawl-66-249-72-48.googlebot.com category/Internet/HIVEConsole/HIVEConsole/Cant_Acc…
ess_Secure_Web_Site.html
</code>

Why EVER is it doing that? There are NO links to pages like that. Those pages exist, the .html part, but NONE of them are in the HIVEConsole directory. They’re all in the root.

#8 2006-05-22 21:58:53

Mary

Sock Enthusiast

Registered: 2004-06-27

Posts: 6,236

Re: Issue with permalinks and 404 errors

That’s weird (both the strange urls and the category mess). Do your logs state the referer url(s)?

#9 2006-05-22 22:36:09

zem

Developer Emeritus

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-04-08

Posts: 2,579

Re: Issue with permalinks and 404 errors

Crawlers almost never provide referrer strings.

The links might not be there at the moment, but they were at some point, perhaps while you were editing a page. Most likely you had some relative links (“HIVEConsole/HIVEConsole/Barts_PE_McAfee_Setup.html”) that were visible on the /category/Internet page.

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Alex