URL's not followed... possible errors in redirect..

Here are my access logs... is there anything in there that might tell us anything?

http://www.hometheatershack.com/acce...m_10_4_2006.gz

Btw.... do you guys have a link to actually contact Google? I don't find a direct link... all I can find are catgories for support information and FAQ, but nothing that allows me to directly contact them and ask for help with my specific problem.

Hello Sonnie,

thank you for details. Do you have any new redirect error entries for this date so that I can compare them with log file?

Btw, don't you have any other (non-vBSEO) rewrite rules in .htaccess/httpd.conf or any 3rd party vB mods that perform redirections?

Originally Posted by Oleg Ignatiuk

Hello Sonnie,

thank you for details. Do you have any new redirect error entries for this date so that I can compare them with log file?

Btw, don't you have any other (non-vBSEO) rewrite rules in .htaccess/httpd.conf or any 3rd party vBulletin mods that perform redirections?

Here's the latest ones I can find:

Code:

 http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-308.html  	 Redirect error   [?]  	 Sep 29, 2006
http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-310.html 	Redirect error   [?] 	Sep 28, 2006
http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-311.html 	Redirect error   [?] 	Sep 28, 2006
http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-312.html 	Redirect error   [?] 	Sep 28, 2006
http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-313.html 	Redirect error   [?] 	Sep 29, 2006
http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/bfd-rew-forum/511-bfd-rack-ears.html  	 Redirect error   [?]  	 Sep 29, 2006
http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/bfd-rew-forum/578-rew.html  	 Redirect error   [?]  	 Sep 29, 2006
http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/diy-subwoofers/146-my-diy-sonobeast.html  	 Redirect error   [?]  	 Sep 29, 2006

In my /forums/ directory my .htaccess is as follows:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^hometheatershack.com
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/forums/
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/$1 [R=301,L]

RewriteRule ^((urllist|sitemap).*\.(xml|txt)(\.gz)?)$ vbseo_sitemap/vbseo_getsitemap.php?sitemap=$1 [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} (admincp|modcp|clientscript|cpstyles|images)/

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1 [L]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !vbseourl=
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !chat
RewriteRule ^(.*\.php)$ vbseo.php?vbseourl=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]

RewriteRule ^(archive/.*)$ vbseo.php?vbseourl=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ vbseo.php?vbseourl=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]

I'm not aware of anything else that rewrites or redirects in the forums folder. I have another .htaccess in my public_html folder:

Options All -Indexes

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^hometheatershack.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.hometheatershack.com/$1 [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://hometheatershack.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://hometheatershack.com$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.hometheatershack.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.hometheatershack.com$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.snapbug.ws/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.snapbug.ws$ [NC]
RewriteRule .*\.(xls|cal|mpeg|mp3)$ http://hometheatershack.com/display.html [R,NC]

RewriteRule bfdguide/index\.html BFD Guide at Home Theater Shack [L,R=301]

I don't think any of my hacks would rewrite or redirect, but if there are any that you know of the particular do this, I can tell you if I have them.


Here's a response I got from Google Group:

to read your logs there are only a few things that you are most
interested in. Page errors and redirected pages.
Page errors should return a 404 error code, and there are quite a few
in your logs. You may want to look at
/forums/clientscript/vbulletin_css/style-c1b5a5c3-00007.css as this is
not being found.
There are also redirected pages. They return a 301 or 302 response.
Your .htaccess file is asking for some files to be redirected.
If you search through for 404 and 301 in your logs you will be able to
see the pages that are generating these requests.

There ARE redirect rules in your htaccess, but if vBSEO are saying that
there arnt then i would sugest comment out everything and try your
site. If it doesnt work then add each set of rules back in untill it
does.

Although it is writen in geek have a read of the apache documentation
for rewriting as that will give you an idea of what each of the rules
in your htaccess are doing. Some of them you may not need, others you
may.

The rules in your htaccess will be processed before any php rules, as
htaccess is run by the server, your php code is in a file/s that has to
be accessed on the server before it is run. So if you htaccess is
wrong then the php code may never be run.

Get rid of your htaccess (you cant just move it as it will still be
run, although you could remove the dot at the beginning to rename it)
and see what happens. Dont delete it incase you do need it, but just
rename it or comment everthing out and see what happens. It may well
be worth making a copy of the file, as it is, so you can at least put
it back if nothing works.

Could you please list your installed mods or provide admincp access via support ticket so that I can check this?

Here's a response I got from Google Group:

Default vBSEO's .htaccess has only rewrite rules (not redirect ones). Redirect type mod_rewrite directives have [R] part as attribute OR have external domain URL in the right part of rule (like "http://www.domain.com/$1").

Here are all rewrite directives from vBSEO's .htaccess and they do NOT force redirects:

Code:

RewriteRule ^((urllist|sitemap).*\.(xml|txt)(\.gz)?)$ vbseo_sitemap/vbseo_getsitemap.php?sitemap=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1 [L]
RewriteRule ^(.*\.php)$ vbseo.php?vbseourl=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]
RewriteRule ^(archive/.*)$ vbseo.php?vbseourl=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ vbseo.php?vbseourl=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]

As I see, you also have added one redirect rule (to redirect non-www requests to www domain), but it shouldn't have any effect in this case.

Yes... I'll open a support ticket with info for you to access the Admin CP.

Update: the problem has been related to "Redirect human and robots" mod ( Google sitemap for the vB Archives. Redirect human and robots. - vBulletin.org Forum ) installed, which redirected SE bots requests from normal thread to the archive, causing endless loop as a result (in case if vBSEO is configured to redirect arhive threads to full showthread versions).
We strongly recommend to disable the mentioned mod to avoid the issue.

After researching this, I've never seen this mod and don't know anything about it. Only thing I can figure is one of two people I've had helping me with our fourm may have installed it for us.

None the less, thanks for clearing it up for us.

I'll further note that the last URL's listed as Not Followed are dated 10/5/06. We should not have any dated after then, if in fact this has been our problem.

Yes, hopefully that will resolve the issue. Please let us know how it goes.