Old pages still in Google index - does it matter?

Hi!

I just got curious and checked all the pages that Google has indexed for our website, and noticed that it still has pages indexed that no longer exist.

Should I care?

If I wanted to get the pages out of the index, what would I do? Is there some way to report to Google that the page no longer exists? Or is there a redirection command I should use?

Thanks for any input!

--Larry

 

You should 301 redirect all the old pages to the new pages. This is very important.

Are the pages php/html or other? Do you use a htaccess file at the moment?

 

Eventually those pages will be dropped from the cache. I wouldnt worry about it. Unless you moved those pages - than you need to do the redirect.

 

Also, if you don't have one already, you should create a custom 404 error page, so that people will still land on your site

 

I think redirect will help us not to lose the traffic.

 

I feel like a complete newb, but I looked through my entire directory and couldn't find .htaccess file to redirect my old google cached pages. Any exact place where it should be? My pages are ASP with html entrance page.

 

usually in the root/public html dir

 

If you are using an ftp client then you may need to configure it to show hidden files. Maybe you are not using a .htaccess file at the moment (most sites don't).

If this is the case just create a text file called .htaccess and upload it to the same folder as your web pages.

Also .htaccess may work differently on a Windows server, you should look into this a bit more before you do anything.

 

I'm actually in the process of doing a site redesign, going from Windows to Apache, from a static website to a CMS.

So, with Apache I can configure the .htaccess file to redirect the old files.

It's amazing how much there is to learn! When I did a major update of the website a year ago (which is when these old pages were deleted) I sort of wondered about the old pages, but had no idea what to do about them!

--Larry

 

"Eventually" - Does anybody have any idea how long? It's been a full year since these pages were deleted. Is it normal for Google to hold onto pages that long? Maybe so! Google loves to have all the possible info!

 

You know, that is a great idea! I probably should have done that a long time ago!

 

You should use webmaster.
This can really help you with things like that.