404 vs 410 vs 301
-
Hi guys,
I am managing a real estate website, and obviously we have a LOT of pages detailing each property.
As those properties get sold and removed from the website, I'm wondering how best to handle this - I know 404, 410 and 301's are all valid ways to go, but I want to provide the best UX combined with the best SEO effect.
My thinking is to customise a 410 page to show the page has been permanently removed, and has a relevant message (rather than a generic 404 message) and shows a search box - possibly pre-populated according to the page they were looking for.
I think this gives a good UX and helps Google to understand the importance of the 000's of pages on our website.
I'd also like to clear property detail 404's as quick as possible to make it easier to see if we have problems elsewhere on the site.Having explained this to our development/SEO agency, they are strongly pushing for 301 redirects or leave as 404.
I think 301's would be the worst for UX, and as explained earlier, the volume of 404's is massive and makes it difficult to see real errors. They seem to think this is a better UX and better for SEO.Just wondering what you guys would recommend?
-
Thanks to both of you!
I think if we can get the pages customised properly, then redirecting to the main search page may be the way to go - with the SEO friendly urls we have, I hope we can set a search set up all ready for the user, and a nice custom message to let them know why they've arrived there!
-
Hi,
This is a great article (on the Moz Blog) on how to handle expired content. It mentions pros and cons of the different methods, and though it's from 2012 I think it's still highly relevant. In particular it talks through adding 301 redirects with custom messages, so that you can explain to your visitors that the property has been sold already, and redirect them to a search page, list of nearby properties, or similar. I'd make this really clear, with a bold message of 'Property sold!' or something similar, to avoid quick bounces.
I would personally avoid 404s or 410s, as even if your resulting page is helpful, some users are likely to bounce from this page without even reading the content and realising it's helpful to them. Also, of course, it completely stops the link value of the previous page.
I'd try to get the best of all worlds, and aim for the most user-friendly 301s possible as explained above.
Hope this helps!
Zoe -
I believe you are doing this to deal with individual property pages that no longer exist after they have sold. A fear to consider with using the 410 to deal with these pages is that f this property ever comes back on the market you have permanently marked this URL as gone and might have issue getting a URL with the same structure back in the index.
I have a similar issue with a client who offers travel deals with a specific time frame and the way we have handled it is we have a custom 404 handler, that when visiting a travel deal that longer exists before the 404 page returns the http status of 404 it 301 redirects the user to the man travel deal page. The reason we took this approach was so any legacy backlinks to travel deals will still give the user a list of deals that are relevant to why they followed the link in the past. We can also bring back annual specials without having to make changes to the .htaccess. This approach helped us maintain existing Authority from previous backlinks, significantly reduced 404's (which in turn let us focus on the more specific real errors)
BTW, there is no reason why you can't have a search page on a 404 page. In fact I would recommend it.
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
-
Newby question about 301 redericts
I work for a design firm who has been updating a website for a client. In addition to a new look, we've consolidated redundant pages for a more streamlined site. My question is this: when I have replaced 3 somewhat redundant pages on the old site with 1 page on the new site, should I 301 redirect all the former pages to the one new page. I know this question is beyond basic but I'm pretty new to SEO, so be gentle.
Technical SEO | | TheKatzMeow0 -
301 or 404 old Event pages
I have a site that lists events and then removes them from the site once the date and event has passed. Is it best to let the old event page 404 or 301 back up to a subfolder that lists the current events?
Technical SEO | | Marketing_Today0 -
Link juice and 301 redirects
Hi, I have a page with a lot of links going to it. I want to change the name of the page (thereby changing the URL). I can do a 301 redirect, but does a 301 send the "link juice" to the new page? The page in question is www.aerlawgroup.com/dui.html, and I want to change it to www.aerlawgroup.com/dui-lawyer.html. Thank you in advance for your time.
Technical SEO | | mrodriguez14400 -
Increase 404 errors or 301 redirects?
Hi all, I'm working on an e-commerce site that sells products that may only be available for a certain period of time. Eg. A product may only be selling for 1 year and then be permanently out of stock. When a product goes out of stock, the page is removed from the site regardless of any links it may have gotten over time. I am trying to figure out the best way to handle these permanently out of stock pages. At the moment, the site is set up to return a 404 page for each of these products. There are currently 600 (and increasing) instances of this appearing on Google Webmasters. I have read that too many 404 errors may have a negative impact on your site, and so thought I might 301 redirect these URLs to a more appropriate page. However I've also read that too many 301 redirects may have a negative impact on your site. I foresee this to be an issue several years down the road when the site has thousands of expired products which will result in thousands of 404 errors or 301 redirects depending on which route I take. Which would be the better route? Is there a better solution?
Technical SEO | | Oxfordcomma0 -
Should I do a 301 redirect
Hi Everyone, Hope you can help me out here. I have .co.uk & .ie website with similar content. On a particular section of the .co.uk website it is updated daily (Q&As, Blog posts etc) .ie does have this section but to a lesser degree, no daily updates etc, I was wondering if we should simply do a 301 redirect when someone is on the .ie website to .co.uk, it means the user is getting a much better experience however not entirely the consequences from search engines on this? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Paul781 -
What should be use 301 or 302 redirection for 404 pages
Please suggest which redirection we should use for 404 pages- 301 or 302. If you can elaborate it with reason then it will be highly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | koamit0 -
404 Errors
Hello Team, I noticed that my site has 1,000s of 404 errors. Not sure how this happened, maybe when I updated our CMS. My question is, should I worry about them. Should I delete them or just leave them alone. Thank you for your feedback!
Technical SEO | | Dallas0 -
301 Redirect
Hi there, We are re-branding & re-structuring our website, there will be quite a number of 301 re-directs, possibly hundreds. The question is: Should i wait until the re-branding has been completed and do al the 301's in one go?, or should I try and do 301's as i go along? Kind Regards
Technical SEO | | Paul780