404 in google webmaster tool
-
I have redesigned my website with new web address over 6 months ago and in the google webmaster tools it still shows my old urls with a reponse code 404 and still crawls those pages.
How do I make sure they don't appear anymore in the webmaster tool and don't get crawled anymore ?
or should I do a re-direct ?
Thank you,
-
Agree with John's response, but to add two points:
1. You can also set redirects manually via a .htaccess file if using Joomla. The format is very simple:
redirect 301 /oldpage.html /newpage.html
It takes some time, but I'm generally of the opinion that it's worth it when these appear in GWMT.
2. There's a feature in Webmaster Tools now to mark the errors as 'resolved'. That can help clean things up for you. If the errors aren't really resolved, Google states in the help documentation that they will eventually reappear for you to find again.
-
If you have new pages that are similar to your old pages, the old pages no longer need to exist. Usually this involves putting redirects in your conf file. I've never used Joomla, but I think the conf file would live outside of that (e.g. in Apache).
-
Your 404's should filter out over time as long as you are not linking to them or listing them in your XML sitemap. It can take quite a while. 301 them if you have proper pages to do so, but if you don't - just let it play out.
Google webmaster's stance on this is that 404's are natural, and they are more of an awareness alert, than a huge issue. If you see a spike make sure it is supposed to be happening.
-
That is what I thought but how do I redirect those knowing that they don't exist on my joomla website anymore ?
-
You should do redirects for these pages if you can. The probable reason they keep showing up and getting crawled is because people linked to those pages before you redid your site, and Google is continuing to come across those links. If you 301 redirect them to their new counterparts, people will be getting to the content they're looking for when they click those links, and also the link juice from those links will pass to the new pages, so the new pages should also rank better.
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
-
Google Webmaster tools -Fixing over 20,000+ crawl errors
Hi, I'm trying to gather all the 404 crawl errors on my website after a recent hacking that I've been trying to rectify and clean up. Webmaster tools states that I have over 20 000+ crawl errors. I can only download a sample of 1000 errors. Is there any way to get the full list instead of correcting 1000 errors, marking them as fixed and waiting for the next batch of 1000 errors to be listed in Webmaster tools? The current method is quite timely and I want to take care of all errors in one shot instead of over a course of a month.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FPK0 -
Google Rankings Are Dancing What To Do?
I was been ranking on page no.3 for many of my keywords. Suddenly they all dropped to Page No.9& Page no.10. Now 10 days back one of my keyword got back to page no.4 & now suddenly today it went back to page no.9 again. I haven't done any changes to the site. My page speed is less than 4secs. Checked everything & all seems fine. No errors or manual actions notification in Webmaster too. Should i wait for the rankings dance to get over or should i start doing something. Currently i am planning to get fresh pages with good content added to the website for the whole month of July. Suggest me what to do?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | welcomecure0 -
Alternative Link Detox tools?
My company is conducting a link detox for a client, and it seems like every tool we utilize is giving us a different answer on how many links we actually have. the numbers range anywhere from 4,000 to 200,000. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what tools will give us an accurate count, and will also email the webmasters on your behalf requesting the links removal? We are trying to have this process be as automated as possible to save time on our end.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lightwurx0 -
Google Webmaster Tools > HTML Improvements > 301 Moved Permanently pages - how did they even get there?
Hello experts! I'm going through my Google Webmaster Tools > HTML Improvements looking for pages with duplicate meta descriptions/titles that I can fix. And I noticed there are about 60 pages odd looking page titles that have duplicate meta descriptions, which are also noted as: 301 Moved Permanently Moved Permanently The document has moved here. Apache Server at sports When I click on the link to see the page names, all of them are pages we never created. The pages are all sports blog related. Here are few examples: http://www.titanium-jewelry.com/justin-tuck-blog.html http://www.titanium-jewelry.com/unlimited-potential-project-blog.html http://www.titanium-jewelry.com/left-handed-baseball-glove-blog.html http://www.titanium-jewelry.com/adjustable-basketball-hoops-blog.html how did they get on our site? Is this some sort of malicious attack? Most of them are sports related blog looking names. I just don't know how these pages could have been created. 2) is this hurting us with Google?3) Can you tell when the page was created?Thanks ron xEtX3op.jpg
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | yatesandcojewelers0 -
How to do geo targeting for domain and sub directories in Webmaster tool?
Hello All, How can i do geo targeting in multiple countries on my ** root domain and sub **directories in Webmaster tool. My domain is "abc.com" and i want to target three countries UAE , Kuwait, Saudi arabia. So, Can i assign geo targeting in Webmaster tool , Root domain for UAE country and make other two sub directories for Kuwait and saudi ? abc.com - UAE (geo targeting) abc.com/kw - Kuwait (geo targeting) abc.com/sa - Saudi (geo targeting) Or Root doamain should be not assign for any country and Make three sub directories for UAE, Kuwait , and saudi and targeting them there geo locations. abc.com - Unlisted (geo targeting) abc.com/uae/ - UAE (geo targeting) abc.com/kw/ - Kuwait (geo targeting) abc.com/sa/ - Saudi (geo targeting)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rahul110 -
Can anyone explain sudden drop in impressions. Webmaster tools screenshot attached.
I posted here recently concerned about a drop in rankings. I'm yet to figure out what happened and thought I'd post a screenshot of the loss of impressions to see if anyone can help? jeZO1r1.png
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SamCUK0 -
Google's Structured Data Testing Tool? No Data
I'm stumped as to why some of the pages on my website return no data from Google's Structured Data Testing Tool while other pages work fine and return the appropriate data. My home page http://www.parkseo.net returns no data while many inner pages do. http://www.parkseo.net Returns No Data http://www.parkseo.net/citation-submission.html Does Return Data. I have racked my brains out trying to figure out why some pages return data and others don't. Any help on this issue would be greatly appricated. Cheers!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | YMD
Gary Downey0 -
Google Places / Google Analytics
I apologize first if this comes across as extremely novice, but I realized I really didn't know the answer and so - here I am. 🙂 Is anyone familiar with tracking google place traffic in google analytics? Is it possible? I'd love to know how many of our visitors are coming from our google place listings (we have several locations throughout the state.) Much gratitude in advance ~ Alicia
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Aaronetics0