Title: Google webmaster tools, getting ?cat=X 404 errors
Last modified: August 22, 2016

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# Google webmaster tools, getting ?cat=X 404 errors

 *  [sorintata](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sorintata/)
 * (@sorintata)
 * [11 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/google-webmaster-tools-getting-catx-404-errors/)
 * Greetings,
 * In webmaster tools I get some strange links not found 404 errors, in the form
   of
 * [http://sorintata.ro/?cat=4](http://sorintata.ro/?cat=4)
 * I have no clue what is that “?cat=X” and how it gets submited to Google.
 * I’m using WordPress 4.0 and Yoast WordPress SEO
 * Anyone can please explain me what is “?cat=X” and how I can fix these 404 errors
   please?

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

 *  [honeysilvas](https://wordpress.org/support/users/honeysilvas/)
 * (@honeysilvas)
 * [11 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/google-webmaster-tools-getting-catx-404-errors/#post-5347578)
 * Hi!
 * In “?cat=X”, cat refers to category and X is the category ID. This would be the“
   ugly” permalinks for your category (or archive) page.
 * I believe the links have been changed to “pretty” permalinks for better SEO.
   
   [http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks](http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks)
 * If you want to fix the 404 errors, you can install a 301 redirect plugin and 
   redirect the old “ugly” category permalinks to their new “pretty” permalink equivalent.
 * Hope that helps!
 *  Thread Starter [sorintata](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sorintata/)
 * (@sorintata)
 * [11 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/google-webmaster-tools-getting-catx-404-errors/#post-5347585)
 * Problems are that:
 * 1. I have no clues how these categories are getting in Webmaster tools and
    2.
   Why I have ?cat=91, ?cat=49 etc if I have only 6 categories?
 *  [honeysilvas](https://wordpress.org/support/users/honeysilvas/)
 * (@honeysilvas)
 * [11 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/google-webmaster-tools-getting-catx-404-errors/#post-5347587)
 * I believe some of these are tags, some of these are categories.
 *  [honeysilvas](https://wordpress.org/support/users/honeysilvas/)
 * (@honeysilvas)
 * [11 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/google-webmaster-tools-getting-catx-404-errors/#post-5347589)
 * The links in your Webmaster tools are links that Google crawls on your website.
   Google goes to your website and follows every link.
 * So when you had the “ugly” permalinks before (for both categories and tags), 
   Google crawled all those links. Those are now in Google’s cache and might take
   time to be removed. To update the links, you can use a site redirect plugin.
 * Please also read this if you don’t want your archives indexed in the future:
   
   [https://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/#noindexfollow](https://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/#noindexfollow)

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

The topic ‘Google webmaster tools, getting ?cat=X 404 errors’ is closed to new replies.

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 4 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [honeysilvas](https://wordpress.org/support/users/honeysilvas/)
 * Last activity: [11 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/google-webmaster-tools-getting-catx-404-errors/#post-5347589)
 * Status: not resolved

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