Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Do 404 Pages from Broken Links Still Pass Link Equity?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Do 404 Pages from Broken Links Still Pass Link Equity?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    5
    8
    5668
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • M_D_Golden_Peak
      M_D_Golden_Peak last edited by

      Hi everyone, I've searched the Q&A section, and also Google, for about the past hour and couldn't find a clear answer on this.

      When inbound links point to a page that no longer exists, thus producing a 404 Error Page, is link equity/domain authority lost?

      We are migrating a large eCommerce website and have hundreds of pages with little to no traffic that have legacy 301 redirects pointing to their URLs. I'm trying to decide how necessary it is to keep these redirects. I'm not concerned about the page authority of the pages with little traffic...I'm concerned about overall domain authority of the site since that certainly plays a role in how the site ranks overall in Google (especially pages with no links pointing to them...perfect example is Amazon...thousands of pages with no external links that rank #1 in Google for their product name).

      Anyone have a clear answer? Thanks!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • M_D_Golden_Peak
        M_D_Golden_Peak @NakulGoyal last edited by

        First off, thanks everyone for your replies 🙂

        I'm well versed in best practices of 301 redirects, sitemaps, etc, etc. In other words, I fully know the optimal way to handle this. But, this is one of those situations where there are so many redirects involved (thousands) for a large site, that I want to make sure that what we are doing is fully worth the development time.

        We are migrating a large website that was already migrated to a different CMS several years ago. There are thousands of legacy 301 redirects already in place for the current site, and many of those pages that are being REDIRECTED TO (from the old URL versions) receive very little/if any traffic. We need to decide if the work of redirecting them is worth it.

        I'm not as worried about broken links for pages that don't get any traffic (although we ideally want 0 broken links). What I am most worried about, however, is losing domain authority and the whole site potentially ranking a little bit lower overall as a result.

        Nakul's response (and Frederico's) are closest to what I am asking...but everyone is suggesting the same thing...that we will lose domain authority (example measurement: SEOmoz's OpenSiteExplorer domain authority score) if we don't keep those redirects in place (but of course, avoiding double redirects).

        So, thanks again to everyone on this thread 🙂 If anyone has a differing opinion, I'd love to hear it...but this is pretty much what I expected: everyone's best educated assessment is that you will lose domain authority when 301 redirects are lifted and broken links are the end result.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • NakulGoyal
          NakulGoyal last edited by

          Great question Dan. @Jesse, you are on the right track. I think the question was misunderstood.

          The question is, if seomoz.org links to Amazon.com/nakulgoyal and that page does not exist, is there link juice flow ? Think about it. It's like thinking about a citation. If seomoz.org mentions amazon.com/nakulgoyal, but does not actually have the hyperlink, is there citation flow.

          So my question to the folks is, is there citation flow ? In my opinion, the answer is yes. There's some DA that will get passed along. Eventually, the site owner might identify the 404, "which they should" and setup a 301 redirect from Amazon.com/nakulgoyal to whatever pages makes most sense for the user, in which case there will be a proper link juice flow.

          So to clarify what I said:

          • Scenario 1:
            SiteA.com links to SiteB.com/urldoesnotexist - There is some (maybe close to negligible) domain authority flow. from siteA.com to siteB.com (Sort of like a link citation). There may not be a proper link juice flow, because the link is broken.

          • Scenario 2:
            SiteA.com links to SiteB.com/urldoesnotexist and this URL is 301 redirected SiteB.com/urlexists - In this case, there is both a authority flow and a link juice flow from SiteA.com to SiteB.com/urlexists

          **That's my opinion. Think about it, the 301 redirect from /urldoesnotexist to /urlexists might get added 1 year from now and might be mistakenly removed at some point temporarily. There's going to be an affect in both cases. So in my opinion, the crux is, watch your 404's and redirect them when you and when it makes sense for the user. That way you have a good user experience and you can have the link juice flow where it should. **

          M_D_Golden_Peak 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Bryan_Loconto
            Bryan_Loconto @M_D_Golden_Peak last edited by

            Ideally you want to keep the number of 404 pages low because it tells the search engine that the page is a dead end, ask any SEO, it's best to keep the number of 404's as low as possible.

            Link equity tells Google why to rank a page or give the root domain more authority. However, Google does not want users to end up on dead pages. So it will not help the site, rather hurt it. My recommendation is to create a sitemap and submit to Google WMT with the pages you want the spiders to index.

            Limit the 404's as much as possible and try to 301 them if possible to a relevant page (from a user perspective).

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • jesse-landry
              jesse-landry last edited by

              I think, and correct me if I'm wrong Dan, you guys are misunderstanding the question.

              He means that if you do actually create a 404 page for all your broken links to land on, will the juice pass from there to your domain (housing the 404 page) and on to whatever internal links you've built into said 404 page.

              The answer, I think, is no. Reason for this is 404 is a status code returned before the 404 page is produced. Link juice can pass through either links (200) or redirects (301).

              Again... I THINK.

              Was this more what you were asking?

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • FedeEinhorn
                FedeEinhorn @M_D_Golden_Peak last edited by

                Equity is passed to a 404 page, which does not exist, therefore that equity is lost.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • M_D_Golden_Peak
                  M_D_Golden_Peak @Bryan_Loconto last edited by

                  Thanks, Bryan. This doesn't really answer the exact question, though: is link equity still passed (and domain authority preserved) by broken links producing 404 Error Pages?

                  FedeEinhorn Bryan_Loconto 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • Bryan_Loconto
                    Bryan_Loconto last edited by

                    No they don't. Search engine spiders follow the link as a user, if the pages no longer exist and you cannot forward the user to a better page then create a good 404 page that will keep the users intrigued.

                    M_D_Golden_Peak 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • 1 / 1
                    • First post
                      Last post

                    Got a burning SEO question?

                    Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                    Start my free trial


                    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.

                    • See all categories

                    Related Questions

                    • PenaltyHammer

                      Passing link juice via javascript?

                      Hello Client got website with javascript generated content. All links there (from mainpage to some deeper page) are js generated. In code there're only javascripts and other basic typical code but no text links (<a href...="" ).<="" p=""></a> <a href...="" ).<="" p="">The question is: are those js links got the same "seo power" as typical html href links?.For example majestic.com can't scan website properly and can't show seo metrics for pages. I know google crawls them (links and pages) but are they as good as typical links?</a> <a href...="" ).<="" p="">Regards,</a>

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PenaltyHammer
                      0
                    • PeteC12

                      Do I have to many internal links which is diluting link juice to less important pages

                      Hello Mozzers, I was looking at my homepage and subsequent category landing pages on my on my eCommerce site and wondered whether I have to many internal links which could in effect be diluting link juice to much of the pages I need it to flow. My homepage has 266 links of which 114 (43%) are duplicate links which seems a bit to much to me. One of my major competitors who is a national company has just launched a new site design and they are only showing popular categories on their home page although all categories are accessible from the menu navigation. They only have 123 links on their home page. I am wondering whether If I was to not show every category on my homepage as some of them we don't really have any sales from and only concerntrate on popular ones there like my competitors , then the link juice flowing downwards in the site would be concerntated as I would have less links for them to flow ?... Is that basically how it works ? Is there any negatives with regards to duplicate links on either home or category landing page. We are showing both the categories as visual boxes to select and they are also as selectable links on the left of a page ? Just wondered how duplicate links would be treated? Any thoughts greatly appreciated thanks Pete

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC12
                      0
                    • roberthseo

                      Sponsored blog - pass any link juice?

                      Hello there, If a quality blog in our specific niche writes an article about us which is clearly labelled "sponsored post" as we have either paid them or given them a product, will Google discount that link going back to our website? Should we request for the link to be "no-follow"? Thanks Robert

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | roberthseo
                      0
                    • brad-causes

                      Do search engines crawl links on 404 pages?

                      I'm currently in the process of redesigning my site's 404 page. I know there's all sorts of best practices from UX standpoint but what about search engines? Since these pages are roadblocks in the crawl process, I was wondering if there's a way to help the search engine continue its crawl. Does putting links to "recent posts" or something along those lines allow the bot to continue on its way or does the crawl stop at that point because the 404 HTTP status code is thrown in the header response?

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brad-causes
                      0
                    • JenniferDacosta

                      Is it a bad idea to have a "press" page and link to press mentions of our company?

                      We've recently been getting quite a bit of press. Would it be wise to create a "press" page and link to mentions of us or would this devalue the links on the press pages as Google may think they reciprocal?

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JenniferDacosta
                      0
                    • nicole.healthline

                      Soft 404's from pages blocked by robots.txt -- cause for concern?

                      We're seeing soft 404 errors appear in our google webmaster tools section on pages that are blocked by robots.txt (our search result pages). Should we be concerned? Is there anything we can do about this?

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline
                      4
                    • rball1

                      Increasing Internal Links But Avoiding a Link Farm

                      I'm looking to create a page about Widgets and all of the more specific names for Widgets we sell: ABC Brand Widgets, XYZ Brand Widgets, Big Widgets, Small Widgets, Green Widgets, Blue Widgets, etc. I'd like my Widget page to give a brief explanation about each kind of Widget with a link deeper into my site that gives more detail and allows you to purchase. The problem is I have a lot of Widgets and this could get messy: ABC Green Widgets, Small XYZ Widgets, many combinations. I can see my Widget page teetering on being a link farm if I start throwing in all of these combos. So where should I stop? How much do I do? I've read more than 100 links on a page being considered a link farm, is that a hardline number or a general guideline?

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rball1
                      0
                    • bodaclick

                      Does 302 pass link juice?

                      Hi! We have our content under two subdomains, one for the English language and one for Spanish. Depending on the language of the browser, there's a 302 redirecting to one of this subdomains. However, our main domain (which has no content) is receiving a lot of links - people rather link to mydomain.com than to en.mydomain.com. Does the 302 passing any link juice? If so, to which subdomain? Thank you!

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bodaclick
                      0

                    Get started with Moz Pro!

                    Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                    Start my free trial
                    Products
                    • Moz Pro
                    • Moz Local
                    • Moz API
                    • Moz Data
                    • STAT
                    • Product Updates
                    Moz Solutions
                    • SMB Solutions
                    • Agency Solutions
                    • Enterprise Solutions
                    Free SEO Tools
                    • Domain Authority Checker
                    • Link Explorer
                    • Keyword Explorer
                    • Competitive Research
                    • Brand Authority Checker
                    • Local Citation Checker
                    • MozBar Extension
                    • MozCast
                    Resources
                    • Blog
                    • SEO Learning Center
                    • Help Hub
                    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                    • How-to Guides
                    • Moz Academy
                    • API Docs
                    About Moz
                    • About
                    • Team
                    • Careers
                    • Contact
                    Why Moz
                    • Case Studies
                    • Testimonials
                    Get Involved
                    • Become an Affiliate
                    • MozCon
                    • Webinars
                    • Practical Marketer Series
                    • MozPod
                    Connect with us

                    Contact the Help team

                    Join our newsletter
                    Moz logo
                    © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                    • Accessibility
                    • Terms of Use
                    • Privacy

                    Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.