Just wanted to point out a mistake a made . When a page from my website was unavailable I choosed to redirect it (301) to a sorry page . It happened that lots of my pages where unable at some point (data was taken from another server) and now G is showing PSAs on almost all pages . Be carefully with redirects .
Think the problem is 301 is a 'permanent' redirect, whereas 302 is a 'temporary' redirect... use 302 for error pages and you should be ok?
it depend on what kind of error page? if temporary unavailable should be 302. if move permanent should be 301
PSA :: Public Service Ads the most hated ones from webmastrs as they dont pay you anythign for any click
I recommend having your 404 page being your index page. If people end up at your site and the page is missing, it's more helpful to put them right to the front of your site where they have a better chance of figuring out where it moved to. Where possible you should move them to the new location automatically. I don't know what the point of 404s is. I don't have them on any of my sites.
PSA :: Public Snot Act Where you can't blow your nose in public by pressing on one nostril letting the boogers from the other fly on to someone's shoes. I hate when people do that!
Don't use your homepage as a 404 error page. The robots understand the code 404 and expect an error page. That can lead to SEO problems and also, as far as I understand, you cannot place adsense on an error page. It is not that you will be banned or your have your account closed. It is just a bad way of using server messages. Enrique
I've been doing it for quite awhile without problems. You could 404 to a page that 301s to the front page if you're worried about SEO issues.
Best for 404 error page is a copy of your sitemap but homepage can work too , Google doesn't index 404 pages so I don't see anything to worry about .
Ok, Please check http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2005-49,GGLG:en&q=site:www.sports4kids.com. Here you can find some HTM page which are still in index. My website have ASPX page but google show HTM pages, which i allready remove by 404. I done a right or wrong?
If pages aren't there better is to 301 them to new location , if you lost them forever redirect to sitemap or homepage . I done it and didn't hurt me , I think helped me but I can't guarantee . I would redirect them (301) to homepage ( in case you lost those pages ). If you still have them redirect to new location . Remember this is only what I would do .
As a note for everyone, look at the TOS closer and read over the part where it says... you are not allowed to serve ads on a 404 page. so 301ing people from a page that doesn't exist... IS a 404 serve, which means you aren't allowed to run ads on them and which is why you are probably being served PSA ads instead of regular ads.