SysToSys

Have you ever seen the pages that do not exist on your blog in Google Search Results?

I faced this issue a few weeks ago. I saw a couple of pages of SysToSys in Google Search Results, but ironically those pages do not exist.

Let me show you the screenshot of the pages of my blog in Google Search Results.



Check the pages that I marked. My blog does not have that pages.

You can verify it by clicking the indexed pages I marked from the Google Search Results. You can see it fetched a no results found window.



If you have set a 404 page, this will result in a soft 404 error. Let us check the reason for it. It is not common for pages not on a website to get crawled and indexed by Google.

Why does Google crawl and index a page not available on my blog?

If you see pages not available on your website in Google Search, it might be because of one of the following reasons.

1. There might be internal links to those pages from your blog.
2. Accidental external links point to those links from other websites.
3. Negative SEO by your competitor targetting your website.
4. Temporary pages created by your blog CMS.

SysToSys runs on Blogger, and I think Google accidentally indexed a few nonexistent dynamic pages.

These pages may be created by the Blogger Archive feature accidentally. However, there is no reason for these pages to exist on SysToSys.

I double-checked and verified that none of these pages are available on SysToSys. At first, I thought it must be due to some Google crawling issue and that they would correct it. I waited two weeks, but nothing happened.

So how did I fix this problem? Before that, let me explain how to deal with a similar situation. If you ever see your website links that are not supposed to appear in Google Search, do one of the solutions below.

How to Prevent Google from Crawling and Indexing Non-Existent Pages on a Website?

You can either prevent Google from crawling and indexing a non-existent webpage or take benefit from it. It depends on your indexing strategy.

Allow me to explain the available strategies.

1. Check For Internal Links to the Non-Existent Pages and Remove Them
   
   The first step is to conduct a site audit and check for possible internal links to the non-existent pages indexed by Google. Once you identify them, remove them as soon as possible.
   
   I strongly advise reindexing that page in Google Webmastertools to inform Google it.
   
   
   You can do it using the URL inspection tool in the Google Search Console.
2. Make a 301 Redirection
   
   You can perform a 301 Redirection from the non-existent links to relevant pages on your website.
   
   It will help your relevant pages to appear better in Google Search Results.
   
   Each CMS has different methods to conduct a 301 redirection. I recommend you read the tutorial provided by your CMS (Blogger, WordPress, etc.).
   
   Look at this page.
   
   
   
   I did a 301 redirection in Blogger to the following relevant page on SysToSys.com.
   
   
   
   Now onwards, when a user clicks the URL https://www.systosys.com/2012/01, he will reach this page https://www.systosys.com/2020/01/fix-destination-host-unreachable.html.
3. Disavow External Links Pointing to the Indexed Non-Existent Pages
   
   The third step is to check for the external links pointing to the indexed non-existent pages on your blog.
   
   Check the backlinks using third-party tools or Google Search Console.
   
   
   
   If it is a toxic backlink, disavow them.
4. Remove the Indexed Non-Existent Blog Pages Using Google Search Console URL Removal Tool
   
   
   The last step is to remove the indexed non-existent pages from the Google Search Results. You can do it from the Google Search Console. Let us check the steps.
   
   1. Log into Google Search Console using the link below.
      

      Code: Select all

      [u][color=#008000]https://search.google.com/search-console/about[/color][/u]

   2. Click on Removals under the Indexing.
   3. Click on New Request.
   4. Select Temporarily Remove URL.
      
      
   5. Enter the Indexed URL and select Remove this URL only.
      
      
   6. Click the Next button to complete the procedure.

You can request for URL Removal Service from the Google Search Console.