404 vs 301
-
My company is planning on discontinuing one of the product lines we currently offer. In terms of SEO, would it be better to implement a 301 redirect to a generic page page (such as the homepage or main product page), or to create a custom 404 page explaining that the product line with links to other pages (according to the most next viewed pages in Google Analytics).
Thanks!
-
A 301 redirect is generally the preferred option to keep credit for any links you have gained to those pages. You can check if the page has links in Open Site Explorer but it doesn't always find every inbound link so there might be inbound links you don't know about. My suggestion would be to create a page that explains that the product line has been discontinued with links to recommended alternatives. Then 301 redirect the old pages to this new page. Otherwise customers might be confused as to why they are being redirected to your homepage and bounce.
-
Zsolt is correct, but i would add, dont bother redirecting pages you know have no links, just get the ones with links, and dont 301 all of them to tghe same page or they will be ignored anyway, redirect them to a relevant page or let them 404
-
It is usually better to use 301 both from user and SE perpective.If you use 404 page you lost all your current rankings för those pages in google and all the linkj juice coming through those pages. Do not use 404 if you want to keep theye values. Here's an article that gives further points for your consideration: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/are-404-pages-always-bad-for-seo
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
301 Redirects a Year Later
I inherited the digital maintenance of a website that was relaunched a year ago. In looking at Google Analytics, organic search a year later is still down 33%. I fear they did not install 301 Redirects but can't really get a specific answer from them. Is it possible to install them a year later to help with Google indexing and get back some of the organic traffic?
Technical SEO | | stansamples0 -
301 redirecting a previously abused URL
A client previously had their most important landing page at domain.com/example.htm They carried out the sort of link building that was commonplace a few years back (exact match anchors, paid blog links etc) targeting this URL, but they also got a bunch of legitimate decent quality links here. I believe they may have had a number of issues when link quality algo updates were rolled out, so rather than try and get links removed and go through the disavow process they instead decided to abandon this URL, let it 404 and start afresh at domain.com/example.html - updating all internal navigation, XML sitemaps etc. So fast forward to today. What is the best practice for this URL these days do we think? Is it now possible to 301 domain.com/example.htm > domain.com/example.html and recover whatever value may be left here? The argument for not doing so may be that you could pass over the negative metrics associated with the old URL, but would this not be handled by the real-time penguin update and the poor links just devalued rather than actually harming? And could this just be tested - i.e. add in the 301, monitor the impact and if things don't go the way we'd want then just remove the 301 again? Would be keen to get a few opinions on this. TIA
Technical SEO | | Salience_Search_Marketing0 -
:443 - 404 error
I get strange :443 errors in my 404 monitor on Wordpress https://www.compleetverkleed.nl:443/hoed-al-capone-panter-8713647758068-2/
Technical SEO | | Happy-SEO
https://www.compleetverkleed.nl:443/cart/www.compleetverkleed.nl/feestkleding
https://www.compleetverkleed.nl:443/maskers/ I have no idea where these come from :S2 -
Help with 301 redirect code
Hi, I can't work out how to make this one work and would apreciate if someone could help.
Technical SEO | | Paul_MC
i have a series of folders from a old site that are in the structure:
/c/123456/bags.html (the "123456" changes and is any series of 6 digit numbers), and the "bags.html" changes depending on the product.
I need that to be 301 redirected to the following format:
/default/bags/bags.html0 -
Remove 404 errors
I've got a site (www.dikelli.com.au) that has some 404 errors. I'm using Dreamweaver to manage the site which was built for me by I can't seem to figure out how to remove the 404 pages as it's not showing up in the directory? How would I fix this up?
Technical SEO | | sterls0 -
Where is the 301 redirect?
Hi, in the last week I take an issue for 301 permanent redirect for a subfolder in the main website! In that folder i have a index.php file for a google map fullscreen edition and the only link who connects the wordpress website with the subfolder is only a direct link! Is that an error of seomoz app or something else? Thanks 1.jpg
Technical SEO | | petrospan0 -
404 handling the right way
Hi, Currently when a page is not found I make a 301 redirect to a 404 page should I really do a redirect or maybe a rewrite of the 404 page without redirection? Thanks, Asaf
Technical SEO | | AsafY0 -
Hundreds of 404 Pages, What Should I do?
Hi, My client just had there website redeveloped within wordpress. I just ran a crawl errors test for their website using Google Webmasters. I discovered that the client has about six hundred, 404 pages. Most of the error pages originated from their previous image gallery. I already have a custom 404 page set-up, but is there something else I should be doing? Is it worth while to 301 redirect every single page within the .htaccess file, or will Google filter these pages out of its index naturally? Thanks Mozers!
Technical SEO | | calindaniel0