Again with the un-broken 'broken link' warning!

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   DzyMsLizzyposted 8 years ago

   Checking through my hubs today, and got a broken link warning on this hub:
   
   http://hubpages.com/hub/GilbertandSulli … oHateOpera
   
   The link in question is:  http://www.sterngrove.org/home/celebrate75/
   
   It opens up just fine, and is not even a slow-loading page.  I have clicked on "ignore" because when I hit "retest" it still reported it as a bad link.  But it is not.
   
   This happens to me a lot, and it gets old.  What kind of glitch is going on here, anyway?

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      Matthew Meyerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Broken link detection is working properly.
      The issue is that Stern Grove's web server is returning a 404/Not found for that URL.
      
      You can use this site to check the URL yourself.
      http://web-sniffer.net/
      
      You can click the ignore button on the broken links page to disregard the notice for that URL.

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      1. 85

         DzyMsLizzyposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Exactly as Jodah says; I clicked the link myself, and it's working just fine.  I don't see why there would have been a 404 error there.
         
         I did click the ignore button....because it seemed to be a reporting error.

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      2. 85

         DzyMsLizzyposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         I checked it with your "web sniffer" link, and that shows the 404 error.  But, directly clicking on the link from my hub, it works fine, and Jodah confirmed that,  so I submit that there is a glitch in "web-sniffer."

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            Matthew Meyerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            The web-sniffer site confirms that our system is working as designed.
            The 404 code is returned by Stern Grove's web server.
            We can't do anything about how another site's server is configured.
            
            In such cases, you can check the URL yourself and use the "ignore" option on the broken links page.

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            1. 85

               DzyMsLizzyposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               Fine whatever--you can't do anything about another server, etc, etc.. I still fail to understand why it would INCORRECTLY return a 404 when there is NOTHING wrong, and the link actually works PERFECTLY.
               
               and, I DID click "ignore"  which I have stated previously....

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               1. 96

                  Glenn Stokposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                  Here's my explanation. HubPages uses a bot to check on the status of URL's in our links. Some sites are beginning to deliver a 404 (page not found) error when visited by an unknown bot.
                  
                  I'm actually doing this too, with my business site, because I've noticed a huge increase in bots trying to discover a back door access to my site, obviously with the intention to do harm or to try to hack into the system to steal vital information. I wrote a hub about it a long time ago.
                  
                  It's the world we live in now with the potential for cyber terrorism.  I expect there will be much more of these defensive tactics to block unknown bots.

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                     DzyMsLizzyposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                     Oh, for the love o'mike!  When will it end???

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               2. STAFF

                  pauldeedsposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                  They are simply showing their home page for any page that does not exist anymore, and returning the 404 header, as you can see here (make up any old url):
                  
                  http://www.sterngrove.org/hubpages-is-awesome
                  http://www.sterngrove.org/fix-your-server
                  
                  That is not really a best practice.  You can see what the page used to look like in the wayback machine:
                  
                  https://web.archive.org/web/20121029081 … lebrate75/
                  
                  If your intention was to link to their "75th anniversary" page (As the URL implies), you aren't linking there anymore.  The simplest solution would be to just update your link and have it go to their homepage instead.

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                     DzyMsLizzyposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                     That was not my particular intention; that is just what currently comes up.  When I created the hub, it WAS their home page. 
                     I'll have to investigate that.
                     
                     Update:  I checked it out, and it seems that every year, they change the URL to indicate the current number of years they have been operating.  This year, it's the 78th season.  Every search comes up with that...so I guess this is going to happen to this hub on an annual basis. 

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                        Glenn Stokposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                        I'm surprised that they don't use a 301 redirect in that case. They must keep losing SEO ranking by constantly changing the URL.
                        
                        By the way, I found a post where Matt made reference to the 404 error when HP's BOTs test the URL: http://hubpages.com/forum/post/2749755

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                           DzyMsLizzyposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                           Agreed, Glen--but some have suggested a problem with errors in the address.  I don't make errors in posting links.  Not because I'm perfect, but because:
                           
                           When I use links, I ALWAYS copy/paste the URL from the address bar of the desired page.
                           
                           That way, I KNOW that I have not made any typos or omission errors in the link.  That is why it is so frustrating to find the (!) symbol for a link that appears to be still working from both my perspective and that of other hubbers.
                           
                           Some kind of glitch is obviously happening, here....and why sites would block an attempt to verify them is beyond me:  that surely cannot help their credibility or status with Google...

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                              Glenn Stokposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                              Well, as I mentioned in my post from yesterday, some webmasters do it to block unknown bots, which might be hackers trying to get into the server. They let Google bots and other search engines see a normal 200 code, but unknown bots get a 404 code.

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                                 DzyMsLizzyposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                                 Yes--my point being that if HP is using the 'sniffer' utility, that should be recognized by most sites, if it is, in fact, a legitimate and widely used bot.

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                                 1. 96

                                    Glenn Stokposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                                    Point taken. I understand.

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      Jodahposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Yes Lizzy, I clicked on the link and it's working fine. I find sometimes people tell me they can't view certain You Tube videos I post but that's because they sometimes aren't available in different countries. But I had no problems with your link.

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