Google Search Console displays message "Page is not indexed: Page with redirect" but the URL it is showing is not completely mine

Question

Google Search Console is showing me the URL: https://example.com/unique-ways-to-hang-your-curtains//1000 there is an addition of /1000.

My actual URL is: https://example.com/unique-ways-to-hang-your-curtains and its working fine.

Moreover it's showing following message under discovery:

Sitemaps No referring sitemaps detected Referring page https://anpoopicj.sarahsdelight[.]co.uk/post/window-curtain-rods-without-nails/50880017

In actuality there is a valid sitemap including the post, moreover I don't know the referring page.

Can you please let me know how I can address this?

Answer 1

There is a bad actor hacking sites to create //1000 links, their software is creating links to various-urls//1000 (found in search) I'm assuming "anpoopicj.sarahsdelight.co[.]UK" got hit by the bad actor and created the link.

It is best the link to example.com/valid-url//1000 results in a 404 page and example.com/valid-url continues to work as normal.

Google is aware of the bad actor ... https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-console-404-error-report-1000-urls-36728.html ... twitter has many, many reports being sent to Google.

The standard protocol for links from bad actors is to not link back, the links to a 404 page will be harmless. Google has advised no need to disavow in mass. For this //1000 link spam.

I'm extra cautious

The .htaccess to 404 any page with // in the page request URL, (not the HTTP protocol of course) is:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} \s[^?]*//
RewriteRule (.*) /$1 [L,R=404]

I'm doing this because I have 301 redirects in use for moved content and I don't want to redirect the spam links.