Google Sitemap "In Sitemap" Message / Error

I have been a google sitemap user for months now. About 4 months ago I switched all of my web pages from .htm to .php and shortened the URL for example:

From: http://www.digitalworktools.com/finance/boilerplates_and_forms/investment_due_diligence_checklist.htm

To:

http://www.digitalworktools.com/investment-due-diligence-checklist.php

I updated my google sitemap to reflect all these changes and uploaded it about 4 months ago.

however, I am still getting HTTP 404 errors for my old pages, which I guess is to be expected since other sites that link to my site may have old URLs.

The problem is that more often that not, the 404 error next to an Old URL that is Not, and has not been, in my sitemap for months states in green "In Sitemap" .......why would it say this message when clearly this URL hasn't been in my sitemap for months?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

I don't know if this will help in your problem but you can use the Redirect directive in your .htaccess file to redirect the old URLS to the new ones until the google complete updates its information in its database.

 

You really should return 301 Moved Permanently

The new url should be given by the Location field in the response.

"If the 301 status code is received in response to a request other than GET or HEAD, the user agent MUST NOT automatically redirect the request unless it can be confirmed by the user, since this might change the conditions under which the request was issued. "

 

Something similar happened with me also. Google also shows some pages as 404 errors, which dont exist at all anywhere in the site or in the sitemap.

I think google is slow to update these changes, and now its showing these errors which it should have shown months before.

 

It's a biiiiiiiiig index gang, it could take a while for all of your old urls to flush out. Also, it could be links from other sites. You site logs should be able to tell you.

Either way 301 those links and your golden.

SEF work as you've mentioned is heck on googs sitemap, you'll probably see more 404's but if you click on the link in the error list and it 404's then 301 that link and move on to the next.