404 Error Pages

Hello there,

I have almost 50 pages which doesn't exist anymore. I have requested for the removal of urls but it was failed. I am thinking of making a 301 redirect to homepage. Is it a good option?

I mean 50+ 301 redirection to homepage? Will it affect my blog ranking?

 

I will recommend going for custom 404 page on your website that should be displayed when your website throw 404 error. In this page, you can include sitemap like page or some other attractive graphics that can inform visitors about your website section.

As far as 301 redirection is concern, i don't prefer going for it untill i am redirecting the new domain or pages with same content !!!

 

Yes doing a 301 redirect will do if you failed in the first plan.

 

Sure your blog may be affected with this one by PR.

 

Redirecting all the 50+ pages to the home page looks like having all fruits in a single basket when you have two baskets where in you can segregate some fruits in that. In the similar manner if you can make some of the pages redirected to some other pages but not totally to the home page then its good from both user and search engine point of view.

 

I will too give this suggestion. Create a custom 404 error page which can guide visitor to desired location. Then you can make a 301 redirect to this 404 error page.

 

no idea about ranking when your site redirect by 301 but 301 is better then 404 error.

 

Here i am not telling about redirecting (301) of those pages to that newly created page for 404 error. I just recommending adding page that should be desplay when your website give 404 error. Ultimately this will redirect all visitor who will land on those pages which you have already removed

 

Well it can give readers a direction but without onpage content those pages loses the rank. Most of them are crap links (due to plugin) or thumbnails image links..It is due to bad plugin output...

 

go for 301 redirect.. because when the crawlers come to your site and finds the 301 then it would be redirected and then it would crawl the content of that redirected page/site. whereas in the opposite scenario where you havn't used 301 redirect . the page/site would not be further crawled

 

301 redirect is almost the only option you can use in this situation.

Probably your site will be affected by next Google PR update, but you won't notice any changes in long run.

 

Sound Bad but i would suggest you to build your own 404 pages will a icon or animation so make them smile even they in 404 pages and help them to link to the correct page. 50 pages, that too much !!! is that any problem with your addon domain ? this will cause you lost traffic and PR as well.

 

No It's not a good option. Try custom 404 error page on your site.

 

Really nothing to worry about... At one point in time I had about 200 404 Error pages and didn't effect anything really...

But, I was able to ask Google to delete them all and they did with no problem...

If you can get them deleted, and you have WP, you can either create a custom 404 page for your site, or what I would really recommend is adding the "Smart 404" plugin to your arsenal..

Its actually pretty darn cool and works wonders for me. Basically, its a plugin that reads the database real fast and instead of visistors getting a 404 they will get the most relevant post to the search....

 

I would recommend you to use custom 404 page to handle not found error. On this page you can offer useful infor related to the not found url keywords or offer sitemap, or most popular post or simple search box, so that visitor can search your site if they are here to find something.

 

if you don't want any error pages just make them redirect

 

Submit updated XML sitemap in Google webmaster tool to crawl new URL's & remove old URL's from the search engines database....

 

submit updated xml sitemap

 

If the 404s are crap (and/or no backlinks at all) then just ignore / 404 / redirect to homepage. If the 404s actually moved to new URLs, 301 redirect.

 

Really creating custom 404 page which is good for website,means not diverting any visitor's from your website.