Webmaster tools 404 crawl errors recurring events feed and upcoming events page

[Benji]

Hi

I have read this post https://tri.be/support/forums/topic/permalink-conflict-with-yoast-seo-on-recurring-events/ and sounds like same issue still reigns in latest release.

I am using Yoast SEO and I have recurring events producing bogus feeds eg: events/busselton-community-garden-market-4/2013-09-14/feed/

This recurring event like many gets a bogus feed added to the URL?

Also I have event categories producing bogus pages when trying to list all content archives for that category?

I am running events calendar pro 2.0.11 and the events calendar 2.0.11

I was told this issue would resolve with the latest releases but it has not?

Again sounds similar to a past issue and I look forward to resolving.

Benji

[Barry]

Hi Benji,

So in the previous thread you referenced this was affecting sitemaps and the theme was:

Yoast SEO is including “1970-01-01″ at the end of all the recurring event permalinks within my XML sitemaps

Which sounds slightly different from your problem:

I have recurring events producing bogus feeds eg: events/busselton-community-garden-market-4/2013-09-14/feed/

Can you clarify where you are seeing this exactly?

Also I have event categories producing bogus pages when trying to list all content archives for that category?

Again can you clarify where this is occuring / provide some context so I can get a better feel for what’s happening here?

Thanks!

[Benji]

Hi certainly

website is http://www.margaretriverguide.com.au

We have over 2,000 events now listed. for which I have around 700 404 errors in webmaster tools.

These errors seem to be two things.
1/ recurring events like http://www.margaretriverguide.com.au/events/busselton-community-garden-market-4/2013-09-14/ keep having the events calendar create a feed page for each day event like http://www.margaretriverguide.com.au/events/busselton-community-garden-market-4/2013-09-14/feed which do not work. If you would like more examples please see any reccurring event on the margaret river guide url above.

2/I also have the 404 error in webmaster tools for category archives I think
eg http://www.margaretriverguide.com.au/event/category/live-events/page/7/ or
http://www.margaretriverguide.com.au/event/category/upcoming-events/page/54/

These archives are automatically made and point no where?

How can I stop the events calendar making these incorrect feeds for recurring events and the category archives that do not lead anywhere?
Does this help you know where to look now?

[Benji]

Also I thought this “linked to from” information for the recurring busselton community event feed (that is made automatically and goes nowhere) http://www.margaretriverguide.com.au/events/busselton-community-garden-market-4/2013-09-14/feed may be of help for you also.

http://margaretriverguide.com.au/events/busselton-community-garden-market-4/2013-09-14/
http://margaretriverguide.com.au/events/busselton-community-garden-market-4/
http://margaretriverguide.com.au/events/busselton-community-garden-market-4/2013-09-14
http://margaretriverguide.com.au/events/busselton-community-garden-market-4/all/

[Barry]

OK, so let’s deal with this issue first off:

recurring events like http://www.margaretriverguide.com.au/events/busselton-community-garden-market-4/2013-09-14/ keep having the events calendar create a feed page for each day event like http://www.margaretriverguide.com.au/events/busselton-community-garden-market-4/2013-09-14/feed which do not work.

I can see the link in the source:

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="The Margaret River Guide » Busselton Community Garden Market Comments Feed" href="http://www.margaretriverguide.com.au/events/busselton-community-garden-market-4/2013-09-14/feed/" />

And it looks as if it is outside of the meta data generated by WPSEO … however if I test this on an installation running only our plugins and the default Twenty Twelve theme I don’t see the same thing.

That suggests to me that either WPSEO (probably not) or another plugin (possibly) or your theme (probably) is creating this link – on the page you linked to you can see it on or around line 42 if you view the source.

Can you try disabling other plugins and reverting to a default theme – such as Twenty Twelve – and see if you can narrow down what’s causing this?

[Benji]

HI
I have looked and am unable to find out where this is coming from? With this in mind I have tried closing all plugins that are not on my test site (which is also fine like your twenty eleven site on my current theme) and the feed still remained.

So what I have done is added the following code to the functions php file in my child theme

/** disable comment feeds for individual posts */
function disablePostCommentsFeedLink($for_comments) {
return;
}
add_filter(‘post_comments_feed_link’,’disablePostCommentsFeedLink’);

this has removed the feed and changed nothing else 🙂

I do not get many comments, and those who do want to follow, if they want to stay in touch they can subscribe to comments? What are your thoughts on this fix?

So next is the other issue number 2.

[Barry]

Ahh ok, so I may not have been able to see the link in my test due to a difference in settings. Regardless, if that fix works for you then that’s the important thing.

It may be you can limit the impact of that change by using a conditional within your function, like tribe_is_event() or even by inspecting the global $post object, so that the link stays in place on non-events pages.

I also have the 404 error in webmaster tools for category archives I think
eg http://www.margaretriverguide.com.au/event/category/live-events/page/7/ or
http://www.margaretriverguide.com.au/event/category/upcoming-events/page/54/

Do you have any idea where these links are being generated? I’m not sure that The Events Calendar itself makes any references to these non-existent pages …

[Benji]

Hi Barry
good idea about the conditional within the function, I will investigate.

As for the pages, these are not real pages but the archives. eg when you list many events within a category you can not list them all on one page when you call the archive of that page. I think these are those extra pages made to fit in the archives but the events calendar is making too many of these pages. Does this make sense?

for example if you go to http://www.margaretriverguide.com.au/event/category/upcoming-events/page/3/ you will see a list of upcoming events, but if you go to http://www.margaretriverguide.com.au/event/category/upcoming-events/page/54 this page does not exist! as there are not enough events for it to exist.

I think it is coming from the events calendar as I do not see where else it could be made?

[Barry]

Yes that does make sense – but what I mean is, if The Events Calendar is generating links/references to these non-existent pages then I am unable to figure out where that is happening and where they are being exposed.

So my question would be, do you know where your webmaster tools are pulling these URLs from … could it be from the sitemap for instance (if so perhaps the plugin generating that map is using a set of not-always-correct assumptions to generate its output)?

[Benji]

Hi

They are all linked to from past pages?

http://margaretriverguide.com.au/event/category/live-events/past/page/2/

Each of these errors has the same format of where linked from content to the 404 page has this /past/ put into the URL.

Errors are Not from the site map.

Does this help?

[Barry]

Not quite – sorry if I’m missing the obvious here but on this page:

http://margaretriverguide.com.au/event/category/live-events/past/page/2/

I can only see a link to another previous event page and if I follow that process there are no links after:

http://www.margaretriverguide.com.au/event/category/live-events/past/page/8/

I’m not for instance seeing links or references to:

http://www.margaretriverguide.com.au/event/category/live-events/past/page/50/

Or:

http://www.margaretriverguide.com.au/event/category/upcoming-events/page/54

Anywhere – it’s definitely possible that I’m looking in the wrong spot though 😉 can you provide any more guidance so I can see what you are seeing?

[Benji]

Hi Barry
Here is a 404 link in webmaster tools
http://margaretriverguide.com.au/event/category/live-events/page/8/
this is where the link comes from
http://margaretriverguide.com.au/event/category/live-events/past/page/8/
Here is another example
404 http://margaretriverguide.com.au/event/category/upcoming-events/page/48/
Linked from
http://margaretriverguide.com.au/event/category/upcoming-events/page/48/

does this help?

[Benji]

Looks like it is in the Yoast SEO plugin?

[Benji]

Looks like it is in the Yoast SEO plugin?

seems that the conical links are not populating the /past/ into the URL as without past in the url the link does not work? Can you shed any light on this?

[Benji]

I have found a couple of bits of code but one is for all posts to remove Canonical links and the other is for specific pages.
Any chance you can make either of these codes for these event categories only?
———code for multiple posts in below code ———
ID,array(4, 677)) ) { ?>

———code for one post only ———
function wpseo_canonical_exclude( $canonical ) {
global $post;
if ( $post->ID == 4350) {
$canonical = false;
}
return $canonical;
}

———— removes all canonicals ———
add_filter( ‘wpseo_canonical’, ‘wpseo_canonical_exclude’ );

Open to your majic 🙂

[Author]

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