Dec 14, 2019

Coverage Server Errors 5xx but these pages are non existent

I am getting these Coverage Server Errors 5xx but these pages that Google "detects" are non existent pages on my site and at no point have ever even existed. I don't understand why. I have tried submitting a Validation for them, only to get a Failed result in Google Search Console 3 weeks later.

Google still thinks these are valid pages although it's so obvious they are totally rubbish non-existent "pages/URLs". I am not a technical person at all, and I tried to dig into this by clicking on the Learn More link, which brought me to a Crawl Anomalies page. And I am seeing A LOT of non existent URLs that Google thinks are "Crawl Anomalies". It looks like these are generated by some software which I would not know about, and yet these whimsical URLs are still fooling Google. URLS such as (example domain only) https://www.my-site.com/grassygrass_s/grassygrass_s or.......https://www.my-site.com/exmachina/exmachina which seems totally bizarre to me.

I mean, what should I do? These are showing up as errors in my GSC and I worry Google may hold these "errors" as strikes against my site and penalize my site for them, when I have nothing to do with these Server 5xx Errors in the first place.
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Dec 14, 2019
A server error means that when a system tries to access those URLs it has a major error and says so.
 
If they don't exist your server should return that message via a 404 missing page status. That should be fixed.
 
Google somehow found those URLs. Normally via a link to them. Maybe a link made by mistake. Once Google finds a URL it will periodically re-try it to see if it has changed. 
Dec 14, 2019
So if these errors are generated by software and placed as links on some site by a malicious competitor who just wants to wind me up, what shall I do? Google should recognize that these are non existent URLs on my site and should not consider them as issues (and it even says so), as when I click "Inspect URL" using their own tool, it shows as not existing/not indexed. One of these nonsense "URLs" looks like this (the domain is just a dummy sample domain), https://www.my-site.com/article/grayscale and my site has no such articles at any point in time. It seems ridiculous and I don't understand why.
Last edited Dec 14, 2019
Dec 14, 2019
Google will typically not take any actions because of 500 errors.

You are not telling Google that they don't exist. Your telling them that you currently have a problem showing them. Google will typically treat them as missing, but will still report your issue.

The main reason they report 500 errors as they means your server is not dealing with things correctly. If missing pages cause a server error, what else does?

In some cases, not dealing with missing pages correctly can cause crawling issues on your site. e.g. if your /robots.txt file does not return a valid status or 404 status, then Google assumes it can't crawl your site.

The URLs may have been from a previous website on that domain.
Dec 14, 2019
So what is the proper thing to do? Because I suspect this is a bug in Google itself or in the Google Search Console, as there seems to be many similar cases like mine (missing URLS classified as server 5xx errors under Coverage).

I would think my site is showing a 404 for those non existent pages, as my WordPress site shows a empty page when I test load those "URLs" but maybe this is not "Google-speak" language that this bot understands? (I really have no idea).
Last edited Dec 14, 2019
Dec 14, 2019
Place one of your missing page URL in this tool and tell me what status code it return:


There's also the chance that you site or server is trying to do something special for Googlebots and that is causing a server error only when Googlebot tries.
Dec 14, 2019
Thanks, Google is showing me two URLs having this 5xx error,  to be honest. They are (site redacted):

1) https://www.mysite.com/privacy.html
2) https://www.mysite.com/article/grayscale

And only the first one shows a 520 on your tool, and the 2nd one shows as a 404.

Both these URLs don't exist on my site at all. My only privacy page is like this (domain redacted) and has been for many years. And it's also a WordPress site and does not output any html at the ending.

https://www.mysite.com/privacy-policy/

Please advise, thank you.
Dec 14, 2019
520 Web Server Returned an Unknown Error
The origin server returned an empty, unknown, or unexplained response to Cloudflare.

This indicates you are using Cloudflare and that it has an issue with getting to those missing page URLs. It may be worth switching off cloudflare to get a better idea at the root cause of those URLs.

It may be that you have an intermittent issue. Especially if you have a go between involved (cloudflare). 

Do you have access to server logs. They can tell you what your server itself is responding with.

Does the page that 404s show content, like a missing page message. Do others reported as having a server error show the missing page message or something else?
Dec 14, 2019
Cloudflare provide some help in resolving this issue:

Dec 14, 2019
Thanks a lot for your insight. I think it is likely that Cloudflare is involved in both these non-existent URLs that are being reported by the Googlebot as 5xx errors.

I will try to contact Cloudflare to see what I can find out in the meantime.
Dec 14, 2019
Please come back with what you find, so others may benefit from how the issue can be fixed.
 
I suspect Cloudfalre is just telling you the same thing. Your server is not responding correctly.
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