Response other than 200
Pages that answer with an error status (4xx or 5xx) instead of the page. A crawler that is linked to a page and gets an error spends its visit on nothing, and a page that keeps answering with an error drops out of search.
CriticalCRAWL-002 · Crawlability · checked on every page
Where it usually comes from
Deleted products and articles that are still linked, pages that crash under a plugin update, or a server that is overloaded when crawlers come by.
How to fix it
- These addresses answer with an error. If the page should exist, restore it; if it moved, redirect it with a 301; if it is gone for good, answer 410 and remove the links to it.
Shown for an example shop at www.example.com. In a Trakis report the same fix comes with your own addresses and the list of your pages it applies to.
How to check it yourself
Open the page in a private window and look at the status in the browser's developer tools (Network tab), or run the address through any HTTP status checker.
What it looks like in a report
Critical The page responds with 404. · /product/* · 12 pages
Twelve product pages answer "not found" — usually products taken down while links to them stayed. (An example shop; the numbers are illustrative.)
How the audit counts it
CRAWL-002 is a critical in the crawlability category, and weighs heavily in that category’s score. When it appears on many pages built from the same template, the report shows it once, with the number of pages it covers — because one change in the template fixes all of them.
If the finding is deliberate on your site, it can be accepted as intentional in the report. It then leaves the list and the score, and comes back on its own if what it shows changes.
Other crawlability checks
- Sitemap URLs blocked by robots.txt · CRAWL-001
- Redirect chain · CRAWL-003
- Page missing from the sitemap · CRAWL-004
- URL with session parameters · CRAWL-005
- Internal links to pages blocked by robots.txt · CRAWL-006
- Pages that could not be downloaded at all · CRAWL-007
- The site is published on two addresses · CRAWL-008
- http:// serves the site instead of redirecting to https:// · CRAWL-009
- Sitemap lists pages that should not be there · CRAWL-010
- Mixed content: http files on an https page · CRAWL-011
- HSTS header missing · CRAWL-012
Find it on your site
A Trakis audit runs this check and the other 65 on your site, and tells you on how many pages each one sits. Or go back to all the rules.