Google Webmaster Tools- confused

[JulieA]

I use Google Webmaster Tools on all my sites. I also use Joomla, and have a Joomla component that provides the xml site map.
When I look at the crawl stats and see errors that are related to a component I have stopped using( therefore have uninstalled ), I revise my sitemap, but it doesn't always remove the crawl stats errors- does it take Google longer to update those errors, or am I NOT doing something I should?
I also notice the "Discovery Date"- if that date is a month or so ago, does that mean there is no longer a crawl error?
I actually find GWMT quite confusing, and though I have done some research, I still don't quite understand HOW I'm supposed to correct any errors.
Any advice/suggestions welcome.
Thanks

[Chris Bates]

I have a similar issue, with webmaster indexing old content and the likes. For my site, webmaster tools is quite useless!

I've not found a way to reset it, I even tried deleting the listings and starting again. So I'm open to advice too.

[John Mueller]

Hi JulieA

Webmaster Tools usually keeps older errors for a while, at least until it's been able to recrawl those URLs. So if there were errors that you have since corrected, it would be normal for them to remain visible in Webmaster Tools.

If the errors are for missing pages which do not (and perhaps never did) exist on your site, it would be normal for them to remain visible even after being recrawled (at least as long as the pages do not exist :-)). If you can tell that the URLs were meant to point to existing content on your site, you could set up a 301 redirect from the bad URL to the correct one. That will over time clear up the error and send users & search engine crawlers to the right URL.

What other errors are you seeing?

Cheers
John

[JulieA]

Originally Posted by John Mueller

Hi JulieA
If the errors are for missing pages which do not (and perhaps never did) exist on your site, it would be normal for them to remain visible even after being recrawled (at least as long as the pages do not exist :-)). If you can tell that the URLs were meant to point to existing content on your site, you could set up a 301 redirect from the bad URL to the correct one. That will over time clear up the error and send users & search engine crawlers to the right URL.

What other errors are you seeing?

Cheers
John

Hi John,
The majority of errors are for a blog component I no longer use- I uninstalled it, and installed a different one...but added the actual posts to the new blog component. So, most errors are for the articles/posts that the old blog component pointed to.
I changed my xml sitemap, but maybe it will take a little while for the change to take effect.

One of the other errors is "unreachable"...which seems to be for an RSS feed.

I did make a lot of changes to the site over a period of weeks, so maybe it's as you said- Google taking time to catch up.
Thank you for your reply :-)

[John Mueller]

Hi JulieA
If the errors are for parts of your website that your removed, it would be normal to see them so I wouldn't worry about that.

However, "unreachable" errors are a bit different -- basically they're telling you that Googlebot couldn't get any content for those URLs, so that's something I'd look into, perhaps even getting help from your hoster if you continue to see those "unreachable" errors.

Cheers,
John

[JulieA]

Thanks, I'll keep an eye on that "unreachable", and thanks again for your help.
Cheers

Julie