Traffic Loss & Strange 404 errors

[con771]

Since we have had a major traffic loss we are reviewing everything we can regarding our sites. One thing we are noticing is that our google webmaster stats are reporting 10 different 404 errors with pages that ahve never existed. These are frequently in the format of example.com/&usg=ALkJrhgI7AGLN4qzSwwOKVIAXkl47giuog
or something simular....
How can I address this issue if the pages do not exist?

[edited by: tedster at 7:44 pm (utc) on Aug. 18, 2008]
[edit reason] use example.com - it can never be owned [/edit]

[tedster]

Just make sure that your site doesn't have links to those urls. Other than that, you often cannot do anything, and it also is not a problem. This is not the reason for your traffic loss.

Bad urls get generated in a whole bunch of ways around the web, and that is often out of your control. Google's note to you in WMT is a courtesy, just in case you can fix something.

[con771]

These are the only errors reporting in webmaster tools for the site...man this traffic loss is frustrating

[g1smd]

Does anything other than Googlebot request those URLs?

If so, you might be able to find the referrer in your logs.

[con771]

they don't show anywhere in the server logs

[bwnbwn]

Those url's arn't the source of your problem and most likely are generated by the gbot or who knows how. I see them all the time come and go.

I would forget about them and look more at your site structure, duplicate content, to find the cause of your loss of traffic.