Pages with .html have appeared in Google Analytics primary entry point repo
aristocrat a
10:34 am on Feb 18, 2020 (gmt 0)
Pages with .html have appeared in Google Analytics primary entry point report. Herewith there are no such URLs on the site. Has anybody faced it? What’s the bug?
lammert
10:58 am on Feb 18, 2020 (gmt 0)
First of all Welcome to WebmasterWorld aristocrat_a!
Are the URLs without the .html part available on your site, or are these just random URLs?
do requests for the .html urls return a 200 or a 404/410 status code?
aristocrat a
11:36 am on Feb 18, 2020 (gmt 0)
For example, the site contains a /page but Google Analytics displays both /page and /page.html
I see 404 error when opening /page.html
lammert
11:49 am on Feb 18, 2020 (gmt 0)
Do you have a custom 404 page which has Google Analytics code on it? Even when this page returns a 404 code, it displays the URL which visitors used in Google Analytics. I think Google did this on purpose so site owners can track problems in their site structure. It could also be that Google is not aware of the 404 return code because it is sent as a header to the visitor, not as a status code to Google Analytics.
If this is the case, removing the Analytics code from your custom 404 page will solve the issue.
RhinoFish
5:15 pm on Feb 18, 2020 (gmt 0)
Check your site map too, I've seen cases where a constructed site map listed /page.html, so hits piled up.
Google to see if these pages are indexed as well.
I agree with lammert, "Do you have a custom 404 page which has Google Analytics code on it?" For those html pages to be reporting, they have to fire the Analytics script somehow, likely on your 404 page.
lucy24
6:34 pm on Feb 18, 2020 (gmt 0)
The great drawback to any third-party analytics program is that it can report visits to pages that were never actually requested on your site--including pages that don’t even exist at all. And, since the program lives on someone else’s server, you can’t simply block them, though they can certainly be ignored.
Never, never use GA as your sole source of information. Check access logs as well.
