How to fix Invalid Product Page registering as Soft 404
-
Somehow with our site architecture Google is crawling URLS for products we no longer carry (there are no links to those pages so I am still trying to figure out how Google is finding them).Those URLS are being redirected to our invalid product page. That invalid product page is returning a 200 OK code, but according to Google it should be a 404 so we get a soft 404 error. Google is seeing all of the URLs that redirect to that page as soft 404's as well.
The first solution I can think of is to create a custom 404 page that looks just like our site, says we don't have the page/product they are looking for, has a search bar, sends a 404 code, etc.
Is this the right way to go? And it will probably take some time to implement so is there a quick fix we could do first?
-
Thanks for the input. Wanted to make sure I was on the right track and not missing anything. Wish 301 redirects to similar products were possible but we don't carry any version of those products on this site leaving no good redirect page.
-
The soft 404 is Google's way of saying they want a more specific result. Either let it actually show a 404 result (vs a page that gives a 200 response but then displays a 404 type message - as you have done above) or 301 to a page that is semantically similar.
A true 404 page would work as you mention, but if there is a newer version of the same product or a related product that may help the user, you should consider using the 301. It can help with your SEO, but also, you can improve conversion rates as you are not requiring the user to "start over" to find what they need on your site.
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
-
How many links to the same page can there be for each page?
I need to know if I can add more than 2 equal links on the same page, for example 1 link in the header, another in the body and one in the footer
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jorgesep0 -
What are best page titles for sub-domain pages?
Hi Moz communtity, Let's say a website has multiple sub-domains with hundreds and thousands of pages. Generally we will be mentioning "primary keyword & "brand name" on every page of website. Can we do same on all pages of sub-domains to increase the authority of website for this primary keyword in Google? Or it gonna end up as negative impact if Google consider as duplicate content being mentioned same keyword and brand name on every page even on website and all pages of sub domains? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Can noindexed pages accrue page authority?
My company's site has a large set of pages (tens of thousands) that have very thin or no content. They typically target a single low-competition keyword (and typically rank very well), but the pages have a very high bounce rate and are definitely hurting our domain's overall rankings via Panda (quality ranking). I'm planning on recommending we noindexed these pages temporarily, and reindex each page as resources are able to fill in content. My question is whether an individual page will be able to accrue any page authority for that target term while noindexed. We DO want to rank for all those terms, just not until we have the content to back it up. However, we're in a pretty competitive space up against domains that have been around a lot longer and have higher domain authorities. Like I said, these pages rank well right now, even with thin content. The worry is if we noindex them while we slowly build out content, will our competitors get the edge on those terms (with their subpar but continually available content)? Do you think Google will give us any credit for having had the page all along, just not always indexed?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | THandorf0 -
Too many on page links
Hi I know previously it was recommended to stick to under 100 links on the page, but I've run a crawl and mine are over this now with 130+ How important is this now? I've read a few articles to say it's not as crucial as before. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey1 -
Duplicate Content: Is a product feed/page rolled out across subdomains deemed duplicate content?
A company has a TLD (top-level-domain) which every single product: company.com/product/name.html The company also has subdomains (tailored to a range of products) which lists a choosen selection of the products from the TLD - sort of like a feed: subdomain.company.com/product/name.html The content on the TLD & subdomain product page are exactly the same and cannot be changed - CSS and HTML is slightly differant but the content (text and images) is exactly the same! My concern (and rightly so) is that Google will deem this to be duplicate content, therfore I'm going to have to add a rel cannonical tag into the header of all subdomain pages, pointing to the original product page on the TLD. Does this sound like the correct thing to do? Or is there a better solution? Moving on, not only are products fed onto subdomain, there are a handfull of other domains which list the products - again, the content (text and images) is exactly the same: other.com/product/name.html Would I be best placed to add a rel cannonical tag into the header of the product pages on other domains, pointing to the original product page on the actual TLD? Does rel cannonical work across domains? Would the product pages with a rel cannonical tag in the header still rank? Let me know if there is a better solution all-round!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iam-sold0 -
Can we retrieve all 404 pages of my site?
Hi, Can we retrieve all 404 pages of my site? is there any syntax i can use in Google search to list just pages that give 404? Tool/Site that can scan all pages in Google Index and give me this report. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mtthompsons0 -
Home page deindexed by goole, How to determine why and how to fix
On Wednesday I noticed our domain was no longer ranking for our key word and our product Isolator Fitness, http://isolatorfitness.com, I have been researching and not finding answers to why it happened and what to do to fix it. We have about 800 other pages still listed. I am new to all this seo stuff, can anyone guide me in the right direction.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | David75
History about 10 days a go I went google web master tools and noticed that there were a large number of errors due to the fact the robots could not crawl our site. Looked at the site and found that Privacy button on WP was turned to block robots. I turned it on and had google re crawl the site, looked like google was not able to crawl the site for about 3 months, on Monday I did a 301 redirect to on of our other sites for another product we sell, to http://isolatorfitness.com/6-pack-bags. This site had a good bit of back links would doing all this at one time cause this How do I determine if we did anything wrong Thanks0 -
Category Pages - Canonical, Robots.txt, Changing Page Attributes
A site has category pages as such: www.domain.com/category.html, www.domain.com/category-page2.html, etc... This is producing duplicate meta descriptions (page titles have page numbers in them so they are not duplicate). Below are the options that we've been thinking about: a. Keep meta descriptions the same except for adding a page number (this would keep internal juice flowing to products that are listed on subsequent pages). All pages have unique product listings. b. Use canonical tags on subsequent pages and point them back to the main category page. c. Robots.txt on subsequent pages. d. ? Options b and c will orphan or french fry some of our product pages. Any help on this would be much appreciated. Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Troyville0