Any benefit setting header 403 for not found url?

[batikmerah]

hi
I've been trying to remove old URL which pop back and forth on my webmaster console
im setting all these 404 pages to 410, but almost 4 months these pages are still listed


out of curiosity i notice that BHW set most of 404 pages to 403, for example, this URL

https://www.blackhatworld.com/members/659798

im also thinking to change my 410 headers to 403 since it seems google isn't dropping my not found pages with 410 header ..

but i really want to know the advantages and disadvantages by doing this

 

[kn1ves]

hi
I've been trying to remove old URL which pop back and forth on my webmaster console
im setting all these 404 pages to 410, but almost 4 months these pages are still listed


out of curiosity i notice that BHW set most of 404 pages to 403, for example, this URL

https://www.blackhatworld.com/members/659798

im also thinking to change my 410 headers to 403 since it seems google isn't dropping my not found pages with 410 header ..

but i really want to know the advantages and disadvantages by doing this

I think BHW does it because that particular user and some mods (maybe) are able to view that page. Setting a 404 there wouldn't be a good idea.

 

[leiferikson]

I would avoid doing a 403, and stick to 404 or 410. How many of your URLs have this issue in console? Regarding 404 vs 410:

Google’s John Mueller said, “We do treat 410s slightly differently than 404s. In particular, we’ll sometimes want to confirm a 404 before removing a URL from the index, and we tend to do that faster with a 410 HTTP result code…If you want to speed up the removal (and don’t want to use a noindex meta tag or the urgent URL removal tools), then a 410 might have a small time-advantage over a 404.”

 

[batikmerah]

I would avoid doing a 403, and stick to 404 or 410. How many of your URLs have this issue in console? Regarding 404 vs 410:

not much around 200 pages, it makes sense to serve them as 404 or 410 as they are gone while 403, in theory, the pages is still exist

it just i saw many BHW url I mean their not found pages are served as 403

 

[rafark]

No, it doesn't make sense. A 403 is for when content exists (or might exist) at the requested location but you (the client) doesn't have permission to access it. And blackhatworld sends a 404 on unknown urls.

Stick to 404, there's no reason or benefit to change it to something else. If anything, I think a 500 status code would be more appropriate but it would still not make sense.