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#5905 – Deletion of SEF URLs

Posted in ‘sh404SEF’

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Monday, 22 July 2019 15:31 UTC

meinolf-mueller-fit-in-mathe-online-de

Hello, I have a question for better understanding:
Imagine I have an SEF-URL which causes a 404. I go to Google search console and request deletion of this URL. Then I am going to weeblr SEF URLs. The SEF URL exists and you show, that it has duplicates. The duplicates point to different NON-SEF URLs.
Now my question: If I now click "Delete including duplicates" the SEF-URL is deleted, that's clear, but are the Joomla NON-SEF URLs deleted too?
Regards
M. Müller

Kind regards Meinolf Müller

Monday, 22 July 2019 18:00 UTC

wb_weeblr

Hi,

The non-sef URLs cannot be deleted because they are not created or handled by sh404SEF. sh404SEF is only responsible for creating the SEF URL. The non-SEF URLs are created by Joomla (or Joomla extensions on your site) and that's the only kind of URLs that Joomla uses.
When you "Delete with dupl." you delete the records in sh404SEF database. But that does not mean that your site (your Joomla, your extensions, your template) may still use some of those non-sef URL. If so, they will come back in the sh404SEF database when Joomla asks us about the SEF for that non-SEF.

That should normally not happen because if that content is 404, I assume it's because you deleted or unpublished an article and so there should not be any link left to it on your site. But if you still have a link on your site to that deleted article, then the non-sef will come back when Joomla displays that link to this non-existing article.

One way or the other, it does not matter at all. The only important thing is that the page generates a 404 when rendered (just try in your browser). If it does generate a 404 code, you're good and Google will update their index quickly, usually within a few days at most. So even if the URL is still in sh404SEF, as long as a 404 is generated, you're fine.

Best regards

Thursday, 25 July 2019 05:51 UTC

meinolf-mueller-fit-in-mathe-online-de

Hello, thank you for your answer, that's a bit clearer to me now. But one question is left:
Is it true, that if an article which had a SEF-URL is deleted in Joomla and therefore throws a 404 the SEF-URL in sh404SEF still exists?
Regards
M. Müller

Kind regards Meinolf Müller

Thursday, 25 July 2019 07:21 UTC

wb_weeblr

Is it true, that if an article which had a SEF-URL is deleted in Joomla and therefore throws a 404 the SEF-URL in sh404SEF still exists?

That's correct. You can delete it and its possible duplicates for good upkeeping but they do not matter really.

Best regards

Sunday, 28 July 2019 10:08 UTC

meinolf-mueller-fit-in-mathe-online-de

Hello thanks. One last question on this topic regarding the 404s.
If 404s are handled to display an own 404-page (like the one from sh404SEF):
Is this still a 404 for Google causing them to forget the link after a certain time?
In addition: If a 404 is caused by a backlink, will the external backlink be forgotten by Google after some time?
Regards
M. Mueller

Kind regards Meinolf Müller

Monday, 29 July 2019 09:38 UTC

wb_weeblr

Is this still a 404 for Google causing them to forget the link after a certain time?

Yes, at least unless another extension is not breaking our error page, which happens sometimes. You can simply see it for yourself by checking the status code. You can do that with the browser developers tools for instance:

Another easier way is to install our SEOInfo extension for Chrome and Firefox. See details on this blog post. It will tell you immediately what the error code is:

In addition: If a 404 is caused by a backlink, will the external backlink be forgotten by Google after some time?

Yes, a 404 will cause any backlink to be invalidated.

Best regards

Tuesday, 13 August 2019 05:34 UTC

system

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