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In the past week, after having no crawl errors on my website at all, I'm now getting the following showing up in Google Webmaster Tools after some of the pages:

[fullURL]?2016-jun-764.html

The date is the same on them eg "2016-jun" but the number before the ".html" changes on each entry.

Also, if you take the full URL, even with the "?2016-jun-764.html" at the end, the correct page on my website comes up - it doesn't generate an error.

Has anyone else seen these, and if so, do you know how they have been created and how to stop them?

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  • Have you tested the affected URLs using the "fetch as google" tool in Google Webmaster Tools?
    – Mike -- No longer here
    Commented Jun 14, 2015 at 15:37
  • You can use screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider or seopowersuite.com to check for link errors. You can use Screaming Frog for free up to 500 pages and SEO PowerSuite for 1/3rd of your pages for free. Both will make sure that you do not have bad links. Also check any sitemap you may be creating. If there are no errors on your site, then there is nothing for you to do. And please, do not Mark as Fixed any 404 error for any page that does not actually exist. Just leave it alone. It is likely a link made by a scraper site.
    – closetnoc
    Commented Jun 14, 2015 at 16:45
  • I've downloaded and have run Screaming Frog. None of the errors that are coming up in Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) are showing up at all. My entire site is "Status Code: 200". It's really weird how these additional "?2016-jun-764.html" are coming up as Crawl Errors in GWT. As mentioned in my original post, if you take the full URL with the additional "?2016-jun-764.html" at the end, the page will display as normal.
    – indietrash
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 11:32
  • Thanks Mike. I used "Fetch as Google" for one of the affected URLs and could see in the Downloaded HTTP response lots of links to malware. All of the hyperlinks were changed to things like <a href="?2016-jun-764.html">mulberry Bag prices outlet</a>
    – indietrash
    Commented Jun 19, 2015 at 9:25
  • What is odd is that if I bring up one of the affected URLs in my browser and "View Source", the source code is as it should be. It's just the Googlebot that is seeing these changed URLs to Mulberry bags and shoes.
    – indietrash
    Commented Jun 19, 2015 at 9:26

1 Answer 1

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While the Googlebot could be at fault here as you ask in the comments it is unlikely. Based on your question and your follow up comments it sounds as though your server may have malware or a virus. I would recommend running antivirus toolkits, and malware scanners, and potentially even reloading your site from a backup to deal with any changes that may have been made to your websites code. Once that has been done try checking as Google again and see if the site has returned to normal.

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