1 reply to this topic

[Force7]

Hi,

I was checking Google Webmaster tools and was surprised to see major 404 errors. Google shows 235 in total and they all reference the same pattern of a link that goes to something that has never been on our site.

(www).domainname.com/cgi-local/SoftCart.100.exe/french/french-translation-software.php?L+scstore+pkyt1174ff01aa01+1204383793


This goes to a folder called /cgi-local/ This has never been a folder on our website.
We definately would not have a subfolder with a softcart.100.exe in it. This folder has never been on our website
The /french/french-translation-software.php This is actually a folder that is on our website, with the correct page name.

We use XCart shoppingcart, never anything related to a product called "softcart". I have no idea who or what Softcart is even.

I even checked our sitemap.xml file and there is no reference to anything "SoftCart.100.exe".

Since Google is showing it as a "File Not Found", that means at one time there had to have been a page that matched that file name?

Any ideas or any recognize this 'Soft Cart' shopping cart?

Has someone put something malicious on our site?

Also, what is the best way to clean up this problem so Google does not try to look for these pages?

THanks in advance.

[Randy]

It's nothing to concern yourself with Force7.

It's either simple referrer spam (most likely given the query string) or that particular SoftCart software has/had a bug in it and people are running spiders looking for vunerable machines.

Since you don't use that software you can happily ignore the 404's.