How come a 404 page ranks top 3 for 100's of Keywords

venthi76

venthi76

Power Member
Oct 4, 2009
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Recently came across a long tail keyword and when we dig deeper noticed that google ranks 404 page of this site for 100's of keyword in similar series. This is just one example site and we found other 2-3 sites with similar tactic ranks within top 3.

Semrush shows volume like 2k-10k for most of the keywords and mostly all at KD below 20.

Few other site ranking below top 3 are profile page sites with very simple content on the keyword and found only very few real content based sites ranking for some keywords - even then they only rank like 8th or 9th place below these 404 and profile pages.

This makes us wonder if a site that do proper SEO article with all possible SEO strategies will ever rank for this keyword. Whats your opinion on this.

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venthi76 said:
Recently came across a long tail keyword and when we dig deeper noticed that google ranks 404 page of this site for 100's of keyword in similar series. This is just one example site and we found other 2-3 sites with similar tactic ranks within top 3.

Few other site ranking below top 3 are profile page sites with very simple content on the keyword and found only very few real content based sites ranking for some keywords - even then they only rank like 8th or 9th place below these 404 and profile pages.

This makes us wonder if a site that do proper SEO article with all possible SEO strategies will ever rank for this keyword. Whats your opinion on this.

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I noticed this too. My website was offline for 3 months, I didn't know and the rankings was the same throughout.
 
These are probably parasite pages. Github deletes the parasites (like free Paypal money generator, Amazon gift card generator, free robux generator, etc.) and shows a 404 page but Google ranks the URL as long as it doesn't update the database.
 
as starblazer mentioned, mostly parasite page which get a lot of traffic in short time but also get deleted fast. They are still in rankings because Google bot hasn't visited them again.
If they get visited again they will be removed from Search engine.
 
Starblazer said:
These are probably parasite pages. Github deletes the parasites (like free Paypal money generator, Amazon gift card generator, free robux generator, etc.) and shows a 404 page but Google ranks the URL as long as it doesn't update the database.
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Thanks Starblazer. Was wondering since came across many updates where google ranks some "preferable" sites than others.
alonelywriter said:
as starblazer mentioned, mostly parasite page which get a lot of traffic in short time but also get deleted fast. They are still in rankings because Google bot hasn't visited them again.
If they get visited again they will be removed from Search engine.
Click to expand...
OK noted alonelywriter. Perhaps the revisiting takes longer time when the site is big? For our small blog site, sometime any changes we do on article and after that we notice google bot revisted our URL to update.
 
venthi76 said:
Recently came across a long tail keyword and when we dig deeper noticed that google ranks 404 page of this site for 100's of keyword in similar series. This is just one example site and we found other 2-3 sites with similar tactic ranks within top 3.

Semrush shows volume like 2k-10k for most of the keywords and mostly all at KD below 20.

Few other site ranking below top 3 are profile page sites with very simple content on the keyword and found only very few real content based sites ranking for some keywords - even then they only rank like 8th or 9th place below these 404 and profile pages.

This makes us wonder if a site that do proper SEO article with all possible SEO strategies will ever rank for this keyword. Whats your opinion on this.

View attachment 347253
Click to expand...
Happens for pages that were already ranking for said keywords but the pages later got deleted. Eventually, their positions would be replaced by live pages.
 
HenryObi said:
Happens for pages that were already ranking for said keywords but the pages later got deleted. Eventually, their positions would be replaced by live pages.
Click to expand...
So if we create an SEO article for the keyword, there is possibility to rank since eventually their positions would be replaced. rite?
 
HenryObi said:
Happens for pages that were already ranking for said keywords but the pages later got deleted. Eventually, their positions would be replaced by live pages.
Click to expand...
Yes. You won't see the 404 pages rank after couple of days.

When Google bot notice that they will remove it from their database or serp rank.
 
venthi76 said:
So if we create an SEO article for the keyword, there is possibility to rank since eventually their positions would be replaced. rite?
Click to expand...
Your new article won't be the only competitor, as there were other sites/pages that 404 page was preventing from ranking. But assuming your new page meets whatever requirements Google desires for pages targeting the keyword, yes it'll rank and replace it.
 
If you spot a parasite ranking, but on clickthrough you get a 404, it shows you the domain can be effective for ranking, but also two other things:

1) You need to be really careful with the content you put on the domain. Perhaps even using a slow burn ageing approach where you only add commercial content after several months.
2) It might be best to just try a different parasite ;)
 
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