Hi,
I have made changes according to the suggestion in this chat 404 errors in Google Search Console, which is also related to
WPML chat support ticket by clementV-3 – 1705572110
WPML chat support ticket by clementV-3 – 1705318089
hidden link is showing a 404.
But the default language equivalent is hidden link and it redirects correctly to hidden link
I saved the permalink again and tried without cache, in troubleshooting mode but I still get errors.
During testing on my website with similar WPML settings, I couldn't reproduce this behavior.
This suggests that something specific to your website is involved and somehow the redirect rules are still involved. Do I have your permission to download a clone/snapshot of this website? This will allow us to investigate this on a different server.
Note: The old access link seems to have been expired. Please share the new access link, so that a clone can be downloaded.
( I've set your next reply as private )
Hi,
Thank you for your answer but I'm struggling to understand it.
I haven't set up regex redirects in Yoast. I have some in the plugin Redirections, but they are not related to hidden link, for instance.
So I'm not sure I get how it applies to me nor how can I use your fix.
The user that I have for this website doesn't seem to have unrestricted administrator access.
For example, it doesn't allow me to access the Yoast SEO settings. Nor does it allow me to access the Duplicator Pro plugin's management to download clone to test on a different server.
The redirect rule for '/category/politics/' is still there in the 'Redirections' plugin, although it is 'Disabled'.
( screenshot: hidden link )
Can you please remove any restrictions from this user that you've shared with me?
Thank you for waiting and here are my further findings.
If your website is not using Yoast SEO's 'Regex redirects' feature to remove the '/category/' slug, it must be using the option 'Show the categories prefix in the slug' in the disabled state at WP Admin -> Yoast SEO -> Categories.
( I couldn't confirm this on your test site, because it would not allow me to access the Yoast SEO settings page ).
Once you're able to confirm that the website is using the same option from Yoast, you'll need to make sure this taxonomy label and slug across the website is 'category' for both languages and not changed to 'categorie' in French. That is because Yoast only recognizes '/category/'
I always used the method 'Show the categories prefix in the slug' and disabled it. You should have access to it with the login link of the live version with admin role.
The category translation was already removed when I opened this ticket, as that was a solution provided on on a previous ticket. You can see screenshots attached.
However, hidden link is still showing a 404 instead of redirecting to hidden link
The default language equivalent is hidden link and it redirects correctly to hidden link
Yes, I could access all the settings pages on the live website, thank you.
We can't expect the redirect link {yourwebsite.com}/fr/categorie/politique/ to work, because the 'category' taxonomy slug is not translated to 'categorie'.
( because of the option 'Show the categories prefix in the slug' from the Yoast ).
The expected link is {yourwebsite.com}/fr/category/politique/ which redirects back to {yourwebsite.com}/fr/politique/ correctly.
Do you see the links with the structure {yourwebsite.com}/fr/categorie/{term-slug}/ being generated anywhere on the website, which Google can index?
If you check your website's category sitemap ( hidden link ), you'll not see any reference to the slug '/categorie/'.
( screenshot: hidden link )
You may have to resubmit your website's sitemap for reindexing by Google, to make sure it is not indexing old page URLs which are not available now.
On top of that, it is important to note that the 404 errors reported in Google Search Console are not always in your website's control, and external bots and spam pages can also use backlinks to your website's non-existent pages.
