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How to Clean/Remove Not Found Errors from Google web master tools generated from translated versions

You are here: Home / Web Development / How to Clean/Remove Not Found Errors from Google web master tools generated from translated versions

Last updated: February 19, 2011




I installed a translator plugin on one of my WordPress blogs but the plugin wasn’t working properly so I disabled it but two days later I found out that my Google web master tools account was reporting about 1100 ‘Not Found’ errors under the ‘Web crawl errors’ section. All the errors were from translated versions of my blog. I used the ‘robots.txt’ file to fix this issue.

If you don’t know what a ‘robots.txt’ file is, then read the article titled how to control access of the web crawlers or web robots to your site.

Basically, add rules to your ‘robots.txt’ file to Disallow any spider from indexing the translated version of the pages. My ‘robots.txt’ file looks like the following Depending on your situation you might need to block more languages. Just look in the Google webmaster tools and see which languages are causing the error then add them to the Disallow rule.




User-Agent: *
# Language pages
Disallow: /ar/*
Disallow: /bg/*
Disallow: /zh-hant/*
Disallow: /ca/*
Disallow: /cs/*
Disallow: /da/*
Disallow: /de/*
Disallow: /el/*
Disallow: /es/*
Disallow: /fi/*
Disallow: /fr/*
Disallow: /he/*
Disallow: /hi/*
Disallow: /hr/*
Disallow: /id/*
Disallow: /it/*
Disallow: /iw/*
Disallow: /ja/*
Disallow: /ko/*
Disallow: /lt/*
Disallow: /lv/*
Disallow: /mr/*
Disallow: /nl/*
Disallow: /no/*
Disallow: /pl/*
Disallow: /pt-br/*
Disallow: /pt/*
Disallow: /ro/*
Disallow: /ru/*
Disallow: /sk/*
Disallow: /sl/*
Disallow: /sr/*
Disallow: /sv/*
Disallow: /tl/*
Disallow: /tr/*
Disallow: /uk/*
Disallow: /vi/*
Disallow: /zh-CN/*
Allow: /

As far as I know, Google penalizes for duplicate content. Translated version of your page is considered duplicate content so for SEO benefit it is best to use this method to block access to the translated version of a web page.

It took about two weeks for all the errors to go away from my Google webmaster tools account but the number of errors started to go down as soon as I updated my robots.txt file to block the spiders from crawling all the translated version of the site. Hope this helps.

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Web Development Google,  google webmaster tools,  Troubleshooting,  Web Development,  web masters,  Web Robots,  Wordpress

Reader Interactions

Comments (50 responses)

  1. chandan says:
    July 30, 2012 at 1:40 pm

    Thanks man i am having problem with format of putting url in robot.txt you solved my problem…

  2. Toronto Freelance Web Designer says:
    March 12, 2012 at 9:26 am

    Thank you for clearing this up for me… i updated my site and a lot of errors came up and had no idea how to remove them. Thank you!

  3. Miniclip says:
    January 3, 2012 at 4:37 am

    thanks a lot… you save me from this annoying not found errors..

  4. admin says:
    October 28, 2011 at 5:59 pm

    If you use the Google webmaster tool it will only affect Google. The robot.txt is helpful for all search engine bots.

  5. Hezy says:
    October 28, 2011 at 4:40 am

    Hi, thanks for this great tutorial. Is there any difference if I use robot.txt file for removing pages from index instead of using webmaster tools?

  6. dualsim says:
    September 14, 2011 at 7:30 am

    thanks for your post its helpful…..

  7. Jack says:
    September 12, 2011 at 10:59 pm

    Thank you for sharing. That’s good for me.

  8. New Movie Download says:
    August 22, 2011 at 2:21 pm

    i face this problem & this tips is so helpful for me.
    thanks a lot.

  9. nike air max store says:
    April 9, 2011 at 5:34 am

    Thanks for your sharing the information!

  10. NikeShoesClearance says:
    March 23, 2011 at 11:49 pm

    Good share, thanks a lot

  11. replica orologi says:
    March 16, 2011 at 1:14 am

    Thanks for your sharing.They are very useful.

  12. admin says:
    February 19, 2011 at 10:56 pm

    @Watson, I have cleaned up the code a bit in this post. asterisk (*) is a wild card witch mean everything under that directory. So you are telling the bots that ignore everything under that language directory.

    Yes, it is important to have the following two lines in the robots.txt file as the first line says who this rule applies to (again asterisk mean everyone) and the 2nd line is saying allow access to everything else under the root (it won’t access the stuff that you specified in the disallow command)

    User-Agent: *
    Allow: /

  13. Watson says:
    February 19, 2011 at 5:09 am

    Is it crucial to have that code above and below the Disallows, and is it important to have the asterisk ” * ” after each Disallow?

    Just want to double check to make sure I don’t mess it up.

  14. Watson says:
    February 18, 2011 at 10:47 pm

    Terrific. Thanks for the help!!!!!

    A million thanks.

  15. admin says:
    February 18, 2011 at 10:38 pm

    @Watson, You don’t need to delete the robots.txt file as it is a standard file for controlling access of the web crawlers. You can read more about this here:

    https://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/how-to-control-access-of-the-web-crawlers-or-web-robots-to-your-site-166

    No, the “robots.txt” file will not affect your human visitors to the site.

  16. Watson says:
    February 18, 2011 at 6:33 am

    I have had the same problem. Since the plug in was active I have thousands of errors.

    Thanks for laying out the details about the robots.txt file. Hope it helps.

    Questions:
    1) I assume the robots.txt file will fix the current errors (along with deleting the WP-google translator app). How long should the robots.txt file exist before it is deleted?
    2) Will the robots.txt file effect visitors from using their own translator tools to read content?

    Thanks,
    Jay

  17. Togrul says:
    January 18, 2011 at 9:23 am

    Thanks for sharing,

    I was looking for these tips.

    Cheers,
    Togrul

  18. Michelle says:
    January 7, 2011 at 3:26 am

    Thanks for your sharing the information. They are very useful.

  19. John Gamings says:
    January 3, 2011 at 11:06 am

    Thanks for these tips. I’ve always had trouble remembering to play with my robots.txt file when I make new sites, but fortunately this post helped remind me

  20. mcse says:
    December 20, 2010 at 3:44 am

    souds good ,thanks a lot

  21. Jim says:
    December 14, 2010 at 10:36 pm

    I had no idea that the duplicate content penalty was affected by different language versions of a site. Seems unfair, especially as having multiple language versions shows that you are actually presenting a more robust site.

  22. shegaoxia says:
    October 20, 2010 at 1:09 am

    Happy to see your blog as it is just what I’ve looking for and excited to read all the posts. I am looking forward to another great article from you. After skimming through your website.

  23. Emily says:
    September 28, 2010 at 2:18 am

    Thanks for sharing this informative article.My website recently ran into this problem. Your info is very helpful.
    Bookmarked and I’ll back to see you updates. Thanks again.

  24. Generator on hire says:
    September 22, 2010 at 5:40 am

    I really apprieciate this article for it will do good to me in the future

  25. jerry says:
    September 15, 2010 at 2:49 am

    quite useful info, thanks. I will try it.

  26. Myron says:
    September 11, 2010 at 4:39 am

    It helps a lot.

    Many thanks,

    robots.txt is very useful!

  27. gucci says:
    August 20, 2010 at 12:15 pm

    Happy to see your blog as it is just what I’ve looking for and excited to read all the posts. I am looking forward to another great article from you. After skimming through your website.

  28. christian louboutin says:
    August 16, 2010 at 10:42 pm

    Well, personally, I use the plugin called all in one seo. It is very effective and I recommend everyone to use it.

  29. sunny says:
    August 16, 2010 at 5:06 am

    Great blog,thank you for your sharing!!!

  30. Richard Chidike | Motivatory says:
    August 15, 2010 at 5:32 am

    Thank God i am able to find this post. I have been searching for months on how to fix not found errors on my blog and this post has come to my aid.

  31. baofeng says:
    August 11, 2010 at 10:53 pm

    that good article,thanks! i will back soon

  32. Hieu [email protected] Tips says:
    August 7, 2010 at 12:07 pm

    Thanks for share this tip for .htta

  33. Electrosurgical Pad says:
    August 3, 2010 at 2:40 am

    Thank you for the reminder, It is certainly a lot useful.I’ll record it

  34. headphones says:
    August 1, 2010 at 11:14 pm

    Thanks a lot for sharing the tip. It is certainly a lot useful. Most of the times I used to fix it manually but now I will use this tip

  35. fengcheng says:
    July 15, 2010 at 4:59 am

    very great idea thanks to share ,Very useful icon sets, tweeted and saved on Delicious.

  36. Kate says:
    June 16, 2010 at 3:36 am

    Thank you for sharing these tips.

  37. Neil Young says:
    June 15, 2010 at 3:12 am

    You are a geniu for this idea .

  38. custom promotional says:
    June 14, 2010 at 9:30 pm

    very great idea thanks to share ,Very useful icon sets, tweeted and saved on Delicious.

  39. Bearings says:
    May 11, 2010 at 6:09 am

    Actually, someone will use other language article by google translation tool, if the content is not in one website, it’s hard for google to find it.

  40. fitted hat says:
    May 6, 2010 at 2:56 am

    Thank you for sharing such a good passage

  41. admin1 says:
    May 4, 2010 at 2:48 am

    we i have read all the articles. Very useful information was written. Thanks ….

  42. admin says:
    March 22, 2010 at 8:39 pm

    If you have translated content then it gets treated as duplicate content as it is the same content in different language. It’s best to minimize duplicate content.

  43. Noter says:
    March 22, 2010 at 9:28 am

    is it true that google hate translated content? because I use auto translate plugin on all of my blogs

  44. hookah says:
    March 7, 2010 at 2:49 am

    I didn’t know they don’t like sites that have the same content that’s translate. I’ll have to use that robot file.

  45. girisim says:
    February 5, 2010 at 12:12 pm

    I have read all the articles. Very useful information was written. Thanks

  46. Raul Gonzelous says:
    January 30, 2010 at 5:20 am

    Thanks for the great article it is really useful you should also deny access to all inside folders

  47. Forum Indonesia says:
    January 11, 2010 at 2:14 pm

    Thanks a lot for sharing the tip. It is certainly a lot useful. Most of the times I used to fix it manually but now I will use this tip

  48. turisuna says:
    January 10, 2010 at 10:43 am

    Hmmm it sounds little bit complicated. Sometimes I found some error reports from google webmaster tools but not too much, so I usually fix it manually and doesn’t take too much time. But thanks for this information 🙂

  49. Altis Lo (Beaulife) says:
    December 25, 2009 at 1:15 am

    Thank you for your great sharing, to me this is an awesome information to enhance my blog.

    [Delighting LIfestyle] Best Buy And Idea | Blog And Store.
    Follow me at Twitter.

  50. Ubalin WebBlog says:
    November 3, 2009 at 1:22 pm

    Thanks for the tips, it is very useful

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