What's the final verdict on 404s?

D

Deleted member 923340

Guest

• Nov 24, 2018

• #1

Should I redirect them to the homepage? Or just show a 404 page?

 

D

Deleted member 813988

Guest

• Nov 24, 2018

• #2

301 to relevant page if exists if not - homepage

 

LordCameltoe

Power Member

Mar 2, 2011

698

466

• Nov 24, 2018

• #3

You can also create a custom 404 page.

 

blackh4t

Power Member

Jan 30, 2009

735

251

• Nov 24, 2018

• #4

Dont redirect all 404 to homepage is not good idea

 

belallama

Regular Member

Jan 14, 2018

200

73

• Nov 24, 2018

• #5

blackh4t said:

Dont redirect all 404 to homepage is not good idea

Click to expand...

Why not?

 

blackh4t

Power Member

Jan 30, 2009

735

251

• Nov 24, 2018

• #6

Google not like that

 

belallama

Regular Member

Jan 14, 2018

200

73

• Nov 24, 2018

• #7

blackh4t said:

Google not like that

Click to expand...

Can you please share your approach on this issue?

 

Veil123

Elite Member

Jun 13, 2012

1,839

3,357

• Nov 24, 2018

• #8

Don't redirect 404 pages to homepage.
Patrick explained this very well on the MOZ forum: https://moz.com/community/q/404-redirects-to-the-homepage-is-this-good-bad-ugly

 

MatthewGraham

BANNED

Oct 6, 2015

1,755

2,746

• Nov 24, 2018

• #9

LordCameltoe said:

You can also create a custom 404 page.

Click to expand...

Do this or write a script to redirect to the closest match.

301s to the home page are generally considered to be in the category of "soft 404s" and are, at least in theory, treated the same as regular 404s in terms of backlink authority.

PS - If anyone has definitive data, pls post

 

Emergence

Junior Member

Nov 18, 2018

151

37

• Nov 25, 2018

• #10

Delete the URL from your site and Google, and don't link to it from any other pages. That should be enough.

 

blackh4t

Power Member

Jan 30, 2009

735

251

• Nov 25, 2018

• #11

belallama said:

Can you please share your approach on this issue?

Click to expand...

as already said in thread, create 404 page or redirect to other matching page

 

~@-kanye-west-@~

BANNED

Mar 12, 2009

581

246

• Nov 25, 2018

• #12

Redirect to a replacement page or leave it as a 404.

If there is good links to the 404 URL then you might want to make some new content for that page.

 

Maxim Alston

Junior Member

Oct 25, 2018

129

41

• Nov 26, 2018

• #13

Emergence said:

Delete the URL from your site and Google, and don't link to it from any other pages. That should be enough.

Click to expand...

This is poor advice. What if there are backlinks pointing to the URL that you're suggesting should be deleted? If it's linked to from anywhere else, you'll be lose any juice. 301 to the closest relevant page. If there is no relevant page, custom 404 page, ideally with a menu to help the user navigate elsewhere on your site.

 

littlewebdragon

Elite Member

Jr. VIP

Dec 30, 2007

3,115

1,764

• Nov 26, 2018

• #14

I was just recently looked into this, so my definite answer would be:

If your page is no longer available, and has no clear replacement, it should return a 404 (not found) or 410 (Gone) response code. Either code clearly tells both browsers and search engines that the page doesn’t exist. You can also display a custom 404 page to the user, if appropriate: for example, a page containing list of your most popular pages, or a link to your home page.

Click to expand...

Source:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93641
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/181708?hl=en