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I have Page indexing (Not found (404)) error report on Google search console for a while now(2 months).

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After made changes on the website, I removed those "hash" paths from the URLs. Right now there is no hash at the ending of the links. But google search console still perceiving this as an error. How can I fix this ?, All those hash ending URLs now throwing 404 on my website now.

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2 Answers 2

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That's not an error actually.

It is normal because the URLs used to exist and probably indexed by Google and now that your URLs have changed it is giving you the warning that you might lose your rankings due to the change.

If there are a limited number of URLs like this you can implement redirects for them.

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    Ah thank you for the answer. So is it similar case for page with redirect and duplicate without user selected canonical? I fixed them but search console still shows it in "why pages aren't indexed" section. Is it even possible to clear out that all known pages errors? Those are fixed but search console still shows them.
    – Zorig
    Commented Dec 6, 2022 at 1:37
  • Each problem should meet it's own answer. I can help more if you specifically ask each one.
    – user131970
    Commented Dec 6, 2022 at 9:21
  • Alternate page with proper canonical tag also shows up, and it currently shows example.com/?utm_source, example.com/?ref=blah blah my index page has canonical URLs in meta
    – Zorig
    Commented Dec 6, 2022 at 12:43
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Firstly, in contradiction to answer by Reza, this could be an error which needs some additional steps to fix it.

Why 404 error appears?

It appears if you deleted a page, replaced a page (your scenario falls in it), or the page doesn't exist but discoverable (typo errors in anchor links, backlinks, query filter links which may not exist anymore or appear again later).

Covering your case of replacement, you need to do the following:

  • Remove the discovery of old links
    • Update your internal links (navigations, within post/page contents) by removing last hash from them.
    • Do the same for backlinks (obviously which you have access to)
  • Redirect all pages with ending hash to without hash via .htaccess or it is better to use redirection tool (if you are on WP) - add permanent 301 redirect. This will help Google to understand, the page is replaced.
  • Go to Google search console > Indexing > Pages > Not found (404) > mark validate fix and wait for the Google to crawl those pages again, find them redirected (fixed), and update you back.

If you don't remove discovery sources, this will keep coming again. However, Google do not prefer to crawl repeatedly on the pages with errors. So, you would see them coming again but less often.

Reference: Guide to fix search console 404 errors. Disclosure: this is published by me for my community, students, and clients.

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