undefined
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
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • 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
    • 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.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • 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. On-Page Optimization
  4. What to do with removed pages and 404 error

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.

What to do with removed pages and 404 error

On-Page Optimization
5
5
1.0k
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.
  • SamCUK
    SamCUK last edited by Jul 21, 2014, 4:26 AM

    I recently removed about 600 'thin' pages from my site which are now showing as 404 errors in WMT as expected. As I understand it I should just let these pages 404 and eventually they'll be dropped from the index. There are no inbound links pointing at them so I don't need to 301 them. They keep appearing in WMT as 404's though so should I just 'mark as fixed' until they stop appearing? Is there any other action I need to take?

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • David-Kley
      David-Kley last edited by Jul 21, 2014, 1:30 PM Jul 21, 2014, 1:30 PM

      If they are truly gone, then a 410 would be the best option for you. Since they are indexed even if there are no links pointing at them, people can still find them besed upon what they are searching for. You never know when your link will show up, because you dont know how long google is going to take to get rid of the links.

      http://www.checkupdown.com/status/E410.html 

      "The 410 error is primarily intended to assist the task of Web maintenance by notifying the client system that the resource is intentionally unavailable and that the Web server wants remote links to the URL to be removed. Such an event is common for URLs which are effectively dead i.e. were deliberately time-limited or simply orphaned. The Web server has complete discretion as to how long it provides the 410 error before switching to another error such as 404"

      We did this for a client that needed old defunct pages removed. Once you set the pages to return a 410, and use Google url removal tool, you should see them dropping off really quick. (all of ours were gone within a month) Having that many pages return a 404 may be hurting the experience of your users as when they see a 404, they go right for the back button.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • Travis_Bailey
        Travis_Bailey last edited by Jul 21, 2014, 8:51 AM Jul 21, 2014, 8:51 AM

        410 is the recommended way to tell search engines the page is gone. all of the things mentioned above are a facet of how you should deal with this issue. sorry for the brevity and terrible punction. moz forum is a pretty iffy thing via mobile. my eggs are getting cold.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • AndersS
          AndersS last edited by Jul 21, 2014, 5:48 AM Jul 21, 2014, 5:48 AM

          Hi!

          The reason why these pages keep popping up in WMT is that they have already been indexed. You could try to remove them from Google's index by using the removal tool in WMT (https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/url-removal) or by setting up "301 Redirect" for them to more ideal pages.

          Hope this helps 🙂
          Anders

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Devanur-Rafi
            Devanur-Rafi last edited by Jul 21, 2014, 4:52 AM Jul 21, 2014, 4:52 AM

            Hi,

            I would look at this from two perspectives.

            1. These thins pages could have been beefed-up with some unique content or at least the content could have been re-written to make them unique. Personally, I prefer to make the duplicate pages unique instead of deleting them.This of course depends on the number of pages and the level of duplication.

            2. Now that these pages have been removed from the website, you should be erasing all the links to these from within the website from all the places like, sitemaps and internal linking so that the search engines do not find a link pointing to them that might end-up in a 404 error. You should also consider if there have been any references left to these pages from third-party web properties.

            Best regards,

            Devanur Rafi

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • 1 / 1
            1 out of 5
            • First post
              1/5
              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

            • shinawebnavid

              Page Optimization Error

              Hi, I am trying to track a page optimization feature for one of my project, https://shinaweb.com but i keep getting this below error: "PAGE OPTIMIZATION ERROR
              There was a problem loading this page. Please make sure the page is loading properly and that our user-agent, rogerbot, is not blocked from accessing this page." I checked robots.txt file, it all looks fine. Not sure what is the problem? Is it a problem with Moz or the website?

              On-Page Optimization | Jan 15, 2024, 4:47 AM | shinawebnavid
              0
            • jafarfahi

              How Removing Zombie pages effect on domain authority?

              Hi. Recently I got a project (removing zombie pages here: https://www.alamto.com/ ) As you can see this site has about 20k indexed page on google and it seems I should remove about 6000 useless indexed page. does removing (Noindex) these pages affect on the site metrics? Which metrics would affected? and how? Thanks.

              On-Page Optimization | Aug 4, 2020, 6:34 AM | jafarfahi
              1
            • mbmozmb

              What is the best meta description for Category Pages, Tag Pages and Main Article?

              Hi, I want to index all my categories and tags. But I fear about duplicating the meta description. for example: I have a tag name "Learn Stock Market", a category name "Learning", and a main article "What is Stock Market". What is your suggestion for meta description of these three pages that looks great for seo google?

              On-Page Optimization | Jun 9, 2020, 12:59 PM | mbmozmb
              0
            • SunnyMay

              Page Title Length

              Hi Gurus, I understand that it is a good practice is to use 50-60 characters for the a page title length. Google appends my brand name to the end of each title (15 characters including spaces) it index. Do I need to count what google adds as part of the maximum recommended length? i.e.  
              is the maximum 50-60 characters + the 15 characters brand name Google adds to the end of the title or 50-60 including the addition? Many thanks!
              Lev

              On-Page Optimization | Sep 4, 2017, 3:14 AM | SunnyMay
              0
            • Deluxe

              Will it upset Google if I aggregate product page reviews up into a product category page?

              We have reviews on our product pages and we are considering averaging those reviews out and putting them on specific category pages in order for the average product ratings to be displayed in search results. Each averaged category review would be only for the products within it's category, and all reviews are from users of the site, no 3rd party reviews. For example, averaging the reviews from all of our boxes products pages, and listing that average review on the boxes category page. My question is, will this be doing anything wrong in the eyes of Google, and if so how so? -Derick

              On-Page Optimization | Sep 30, 2016, 8:28 PM | Deluxe
              0
            • aj613

              Random /feed 404 error from a wordpress site

              My Moz Analytics report shows a 404 error on a page which I think should not exist at all.  The URL is http://henryplumbingco.com/portfolio-item/butler-elementary/feed/.  When I checked webmaster tools, it looks like there are a number of random /feed urls throwing 404 errors. I am using WordPress and the Enfold theme. Anyone know how to get rid of these errors? Thanks,

              On-Page Optimization | Jul 21, 2016, 12:13 PM | aj613
              0
            • jeeyer

              Dynamic URL Parameters + Woocommerce create 404 errors

              Hi Guys,
              Our latest Moz crawl shows a lot of 404-errors for pages that create dynamical links for users? (I guess it are dynamic links, not sure). Situation: On a page which shows products from brand X users can use the pagination icons on the bottom, or click on: View: / 24/48/All.
              When a user clicks 48 the end of the link will be /?show_products=48
              I think there were some pages that could show 48 products but do not exist anymore (because products are sold out for example), and that's why they show 404's and Moz reports them. How do I deal with these 404-errors? I can't set a 301-redirect because it depends on how many products are shown (it changes every time).
              Should I just ignore these kind of 404-errors? Or what is the best way to handle this situation?

              On-Page Optimization | May 5, 2015, 6:07 PM | jeeyer
              0
            • MeghanPrudencio

              Would it be bad to change the canonical URL to the most recent page that has duplicate content, or should we just 301 redirect to the new page?

              Is it bad to change the canonical URL in the tag, meaning does it lose it's stats? If we add a new page that may have duplicate content, but we want that page to be indexed over the older pages, should we just change the canonical page or redirect from the original canonical page? Thanks so much! -Amy

              On-Page Optimization | Mar 8, 2011, 9:32 PM | MeghanPrudencio
              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.