Not followed

What is a Not followed error?

Not followed errors lists URLs that Google could not completely follow, along with some information as to why. Here are some reasons why Googlebot may not have been able to follow URLs on your site:

Flash, JavaScript, active content

Some features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Flash can make it difficult for search engines to crawl your site. Check the following:

  • Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine your site, since many search engines see your site much as Lynx would. If features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site.
  • Use Fetch as Google to see exactly how your site appears to Google.
  • If you use dynamic pages (for instance, if your URL contains a ? character), be aware that not all search engine spiders crawl dynamic and static pages. In general, we recommend keeping parameters short and using them sparingly. If you’re confident about how parameters work for your site, you can tell Google how we should handle them.

Redirects

  • If you are permanently redirecting from one page to another, make sure you're returning the right HTTP status code (301 Moved Permanently).
  • Where possible, use absolute rather than relative links. (For instance, when linking to another page in your site, link to www.example.com/mypage.html rather than simply mypage.html).
  • Try to make every page on your site reachable from at least one static text link. In general, minimize the number of redirects needed to follow a link from one page to another.
  • Check your redirects point to the right pages! Sometimes we discover redirects that point to themselves (resulting in a loop error) or to invalid URLs.
  • Don’t include redirected URLs in your Sitemaps.
  • Keep your URLs as short as possible. Make sure you aren’t automatically appending information (such as session IDs) to your redirect URLs.
  • Make sure your site allows search bots to crawl your site without session IDs or arguments that track their path through the site.

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