How to fix errors that google sees and you don’t

How to Fix Errors That Google Sees and You Don't

Kevin Ocasio

How to Fix Errors That Google Sees and You Don't

As new bloggers, there’s always so much to do. We have content to write, work on promotion, blogger outreach, video creation and etc. Most of us never even consider learning how to x errors that Google sees and can keep us from growing.

Maybe you’re so focused on learning a liate marketing tips that will help you increase your income?

Or maybe you’re spending tons of time reading tips on how to increase your blog traffic?

The last thing you want to do is spend time learning how to x errors on our blog. You might not even know that Google is sending you warnings.

To tell you the truth, I have no clue what these warnings mean, but if you want to improve your organic tra c, it’s important to spend time fixing them.

If you’ve taken the time to learn how to start a blog and are treating it like a business. Chances are you’ve been taking the time to optimize your blog posts.

You might even be seeing some organic tra c from Google. If so, that’s awesome. That means that the work you put into optimizing your blog posts is paying off.

Today, I am going to show you how to check your site to see if it has any errors. Then I’ll walk you through on how to fix your Google search crawler errors.

Before We Fix the Errors

Sometimes I feel like I have so much to share. I never used to feel like that when it came to my WordPress knowledge.

Nope, if you would’ve asked me 8 years ago to set up a new WordPress blog, I wouldn’t have known where to start. It was through consistent practice every day.

The reason that I started my blog was to leave my freelancing business. I love working with clients, but I am so tired of trading hours for dollars.

Like Kevin Ocasio, most of us want to take control of our nancial freedom. His blog has tons of articles that will help you create a profitable blog.

Yes, a blog consists of writing content and blog promotion. However, it’s important to learn how to x errors that may hold you back from growing.

Since I spent some time yesterday xing my Google Search Console crawl errors, I thought I’d share the steps I took to get rid of them.

How to Fix Errors Google Sees If you’re a new blogger, chances are you won’t know what I’m talking about.

You log into your blog every day because you understand the importance of creating content on a regular basis.

You’re probably ready to say, man, Susan doesn’t know what she’s talking about. I don’t see any errors. I’m able to log into the WordPress dashboard without any issues.

In case you don’t know, the techie stu comes pretty easy to me. I can install a WordPress blog manually in just minutes. If you want to learn how to install WordPress , I can help you out.

Hold on, before you leave, let me ask you this. “Do you know how to check your Google search crawler errors?”

I can even migrate a site from one hosting account to another, without any downtime.

Don’t know what I’m talking about? Well, I am going to show you what I found in my Google Search Console yesterday morning.

How to Fix Errors That Google Sees and You Don't

How to Fix Errors That Google Sees and You Don't

Hopefully, by sharing what I did to x the crawl errors my blog, will show you how easy it can be.

Log Into Your Google Search Console Before you can actually start xing your errors, you rst need to make sure that you submit your sitemap to Google.

Hopefully, you submitted your sitemap as soon as you started your blog. If so that’s awesome. You will be able to follow along and see if you’re blog has any crawl errors.

Let’s get started Once you’re logged in, choose the blog you want to check.

Chances are you’ll only have one blog on Google Search Console, if not choose the correct blog.

Now go to Manage Property andchoose to add or remove users . I am not sure there’s a better way to access your Google Search Console dashboard, but this is what I do.

Head On Over To Crawl Next, go to Crawl >> Crawl Errors Hopefully, you won’t see any errors. Today, we’re only focusing on crawl errors, so if you don’t see any you can continue working on growing your blog.

If you’ve never dug around your Google Search Console, here’s great beginners guide to help you out.

If you see any errors, you’ll see something like this.

I was surprised when I logged into my Search Console and I saw 18 errors. Personally, I don’t know if these errors mess with your SEO or not? You can read more about the Google crawl errors here.

Fetch as Google One of the rst things I like to do is click on Fetch as Google. This will show you what Google sees when they crawl your site.

Most likely it’s going to be a link that goes to your 404 page. At least that’s where mine went

Why I Had So Many Errors As our blog continues to grow and we develop our blogging voice and nd our audience. Through this discovery, you remove categories that are no longer relevant.

Or maybe you change the name and the permalink of your categories.

This means that the permalink structure of your site changes. However, what you don’t realize is that you’ve probably already linked to that old link several times in your blog posts.

So when you change the permalink structure of your categories, the old link no longer sends people to the category.

Instead, they are being taken to your 404 or not found page.

This is what I did on my blog. I changed the layout on my blog and renamed several of my categories.

Guess what, I hadn’t changed out those old links. So Google was crawling those old links and they weren’t even valid anymore.

How to Fix Errors That Google Sees and You Don't

How to Fix Errors That Google Sees and You Don't

Don’t Do This If you have a bunch of errors, the rst thing you’ll be tempted to do is click on Mark as Fixed. That’s not going to help and chances are in about 30-90 days all those errors will be back.

Instead, you need to stop spending time on Pinterest. Or spending time reading tips on how to grow your blog.

Instead, set aside 30 minutes right now, to get those issues cleared up.

Trust me, it’s not hard and you’ll be happy that you took the time to x them. You won’t have to worry about all these crawl errors staring you in the face anymore.

Setting Up 301 Redirects The easiest and quickest x is to set up 301 redirects so that those old links redirect to your new working links. The downside to using this method is that you may end up with several links being redirected.

Of course, it depends on how many errors you have.

Remember, as your site continues to grow, chances are you’ll get more crawl errors.

Unfortunately, this just happens. That’s why so many people preach that we should be checking our Google Search Console at least every 30-60 days.

I’ll be using the Yoast SEO premium plugin for my redirects. However, the Simple 301 redirect plugin is free and will do the job.

You’ll want to add your old URL, which is the one that Google is saying it’s having trouble crawling. Underneath the old URL text eld. Next, add the new URL where you want to redirect your traffic to.

Then click Add Redirect.

Now your redirect is set up. You can even test it out by pasting your old URL in a new browser. It should now redirect you to the URL you speci ed you wanted to send traffic to.

Once the Errors Are Fixed The rst couple of times you do this will be scary. Heck, you may dread doing it, however, if you’re managing your own blog.

Chances are if you’re a new blogger, you don’t have the money to start outsourcing yet. This means that you wear all the hats in your blogging business.

You’re going to have to do this. So take the time to x all the errors.

If you have a lot of crawl errors, just tackle them one at a time. Just like anything else, it takes baby steps to learn how to do things for our blog.

How Often Do I Check For Errors Once you x your errors, you can log out of your Google Search Console and pat yourself on the back. You did it.

Hopefully, you xed all those errors and they don’t come back. I suggest that you check back in 30-60 days to make sure that you actually fixed the errors.

How to Fix Errors That Google Sees and You Don't

How to Fix Errors That Google Sees and You Don't

After that, just log into your Google Search console once every 30-60 days to make sure everything is good. To be honest, I don’t log in as often as I should.

I get so busy with the day to day tasks of growing my blog.

These blog maintenance tasks tend to fall to the back burner.

However, it’s important to check into your Google Search console to make sure that Google is not seeing errors on your blog.

Final Take Away As bloggers, there’s always so much to do to grow our blogs. Most of us start out as a one-person show. This means we have to do everything if we want to grow.

If you take the time to treat your blog like a business and do something for it every day. It may take a while, but eventually, you’ll look back and see what you’ve created.

Have you ever had to clean up crawl errors on Google?

Share your experience in the comments below, I’d love to hear about them.

How to Fix Errors That Google Sees and You Don't