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Hi all
Just today I started receiving very strange 404 issues reported by the SEO Ultimate plugin for WordPress. I’ve seen various older threads on 404s, but this one is a strange one and I even wonder, if I got hacked or something. However, there are no leads as yet, that this may have happened (virus check, all accounts still working etc.).
I am aware that various events can cause 404s, but in this instance I appear to literally be getting the 404s of another site altogether (or someone is taking the mickey or am I under some serious bot attack??)… And they keep coming. In just under 2 hours I must have received about another hundred 404s that have nothing to do with me. How can someone explain the following entries? Was going to attach a screen grab, but that didn’t work out.
A few examples:
MYDOMAIN/peanut-butter-mousse-in-tuile-cookie-spoons/
MYDOMAIN/horoscope.pdf
MYDOMAIN/sermons/?download&file_name=Los-Brazos-Abiertos-de-Dios.ppsx
MYDOMAIN/valentines-day-decor/Horoscope, Valentines Day Decor? Certainly no content for a casino guide. They are not my links/articles of course… Anyone has had similar experiences or knows what’s going on here? Seems worrying.
Thanks everyone for any advice.
Could be links to hacking files, that gratefully are not on your server. SOmetimes when an exploit is out there people will use a bot to link to sites seeing if that exploit page is there. You may want to check some logs to insure there are not other pages that are NOT 404 errors people are getting to that are not yours.
unusual because “/sermons/?download&file_name=Los-Brazos-Abiertos-de-Dios.ppsx” doesn’t show up in the SERPs only when you mention it here.
Are those links in your sitemap?
@Rak 242186 wrote:
unusual because “/sermons/?download&file_name=Los-Brazos-Abiertos-de-Dios.ppsx” doesn’t show up in the SERPs only when you mention it here.
Are those links in your sitemap?
Thanks everyone for your advice and HI Rak!
Good question. Upon receiving the 404s I did check in the sitemap and the URL examples I gave are not actually in there. I guess that’s a good start. I’ve been doing a little reading and I suppose those 404 bot attacks are a means to slow down your server. I still have 57 of these “spaghetti-torte-recipe” and related sitting in the log.
On the contrary, I have not received anymore exotic 404s in the last 24 hours. Unlikely, but maybe that is, because I didn’t clear the ‘SEO Ultimate plugin’ 404 log. I will do so and see what happens.
I’ll let you know, if I keep getting bombarded. Thanks again for everyone’s reply!
