[wp-testers] 401 error not occurring when search by page_name doesn't find match

Christine Evron christine at tstone.biz
Fri May 11 17:26:44 UTC 2012


Using v. 3.4-beta4-20766
twenty 11 theme
no plugins

WordPress is redirecting to my home page instead of issuing a page not found
error when people looking to buy garbage (insert spam term here) are sent to
pages Spammers wish were on my site .

For instance try appending /?page_name=trash&id=1995 to any WordPress url.
Instead of getting a page not found it goes to the home page. This is bad
because Google's algorithm seems to associate the trash terms with my site
if it doesn't get a 401 error.

I could be wrong about Google's associations but the trash terms are not in
my theme, content, or database and Google hasn't reduced the keyword
standings for the trash terms. - On my best day I get 20,000 hits that may
be legit. With the miracle of spam my pages can get 80,000 hits.  Guess what
Google thinks are significant terms for my site.

Is this a bug or have I missed the beauty of something?
Thanks,
Christine



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