422 vs 404 Status Codes
-
We work with an automotive industry platform provider and whenever a vehicle is removed from inventory, a 404 error is returned. Being that inventory moves so quickly, we have a host of 404 errors in search console.
The fix that the platform provider proposed was to return a 422 status code vs a 404. I'm not familiar with how a 422 may impact our optimization efforts. Is this a good approach, since there is no scalable way to 301 redirect all of those dead inventory pages.
-
Thanks Mike.
Your initial solution would be preferred, but its not scalable. We are talking about over 100 websites with varying levels of inventory.
I was thinking along the lines of the keeping the 404 or 410 status. It was just odd when the vendor proposed a 422 error, when its not a preferred option in Google's support pages. I was just wondering if anyone used the 422 response code before and if so, why.
-
Personally I think you should set up a process whereby every time a vehicle and/or part is removed, you have someone automatically 301 it to the previous step in the site navigation. So when "blue widget 3" is removed from the site, anyone landing on that page or who has it bookmarked winds up on the "Widget" category page. Now there may not be an easy way to do it right this second because of how many there are now, but if you get in the habit of doing it and slowly work toward fixing the others then you'll be in a good position in the future to keep this from being an issue again.
Now if you really don't want to attempt that... 404s aren't necessarily horrible (too many can be). If your site is properly serving 404s then you won't be penalized for it but in this case you might want to consider using 410 status codes. Its a stronger signal for removal than a 404 and you don't plan on the product ever coming back so marking it Gone should get it removed from the index faster while also helping to keep you from competing against yourself in the SERPs when a new but similar product comes into stock.
-
Do pages of vehicles that are in inventory for a short time actually deliver monetizable traffic?
If the answer is no, because they are up for such a short amount of time, you would have to weigh the value of having them indexable in the first place vs creating an ever-growing list of missing pages.
Having a lot of 404s or 422s is a bit of a negative. Is there really no way to add the step of 301ing to their removal?
Making the pages non-indexable via noindex once they are indexed will not remove them. You either have to 301 and/or request removal from the G's index. Is there a programmatic way to turn their removal into a 301 to the top inventory category page?
Good luck!
-
A 422 is an unprocessable error, which I think will have as much impact as a 404 (page not found error).
You could make pages non indexable once a vehicle has been removed from the inventory. This shouldn't impact you SEO efforts.
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
-
Godaddy and Soft 404's
Hello, We've found that a website we manage has a list of not-found URLS in Google webmaster tools which are "soft 404's " according to Google. I went to the hosting company GoDaddy to explain and to see what they could do. As far as I can see GoDaddy's server are responding with a 200 HTTP error code - meaning that the page exists and was served properly. They have sort of disowned this as their problem. Their server is not serving up a true 404 response. This is a WordPress site. 1) Has anyone seen this problem before with GoDaddy?Is it a GoDaddy problem?2) Do you know a way to sort this issue? When I use the command site:mydomain.co.uk the number of URLs indexed is about right except for 2 or 3 "soft URLs" . So I wonder why webmaster tools report so many yet I can't see them all in the index?
Technical SEO | | AL123al0 -
Https vs http two different domains?
If i visit mywebsite.com.au, www.mywebsite.com.au and http://www.mywebsite.com.au - i get one website BUT if I visit https://www.mywebsite.com.au I get a different website - I also get a untrusted website warning The logo in the bottom right of the https: website is the name of the webdesigner where the website is hosted. Is this a normal practice?
Technical SEO | | GardenBeet0 -
Root directory vs. subdirectories
Hello. How much more important does Google consider pages in the root directory relative to pages in a subdirectory? Is it best to keep the most important pages of a site in the root directory? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | nyc-seo0 -
Page Name vs Header
Hi! I was wondering if one of our knowledgeable community members can help me out: I use the drag & drop Intuit Website Builder. For each page, there is a field for the page "Name" and for the "Header". I understand the header is a standard element in a page. What exactly is the page "Name", how is different from the header and can/should I use the same text for both? Your input for a beginner like me is appreciated! I also have another question if you guys will indulge me: Intuit's support is terrible. You cannot get assistance over the phone, only through an annoying "chat" system. Wordpress has been recommended to me by multiple people. Are they really that good? how is their support?
Technical SEO | | Jorge1110 -
Http VS https and google crawl and indexing ?
Is it true that https pages are not crawled and indexed by Google and other search engines as well as http pages?
Technical SEO | | sherohass0 -
Why is it that in the exported CSV there are no refrerring pages shown for 404 errors?
Within some of my campaigns i can see issues regarding 404 pages. Then when i export the data to a csv, sometimes the referring pages that lead tot the 404 are not shown. Am i missing something here?
Technical SEO | | 5MMedia0 -
Dealing with 404 pages
I built a blog on my root domain while I worked on another part of the site at .....co.uk/alpha I was really careful not to have any links go to alpha - but it seems google found and indexed it. The problem is that part of alpha was a copy of the blog - so now soon we have a lot of duplicate content. The /alpha part is now ready to be taken over to the root domain, the initial plan was to then delete /alpha. But now that its indexed I'm worried that Ill have all these 404 pages. I'm not sure what to do.. I know I can just do a 301 redirect for all those pages to go to the other ones in case a link comes on but I need to delete those pages as the server is already very slow. Or does a 301 redirect mean that I don't need those pages anymore? Will those pages still get indexed by google as separate pages? Please assist.
Technical SEO | | borderbound0 -
Webmaster Tools 404 Errors Pages Never Created
Recently, 196 404 errors appeared in my WMT account for pages that were never created on my site. Question: Any thoughts on how they got there (i.e. WMT bug, tactic by competitor)? Question: Thoughts on impact if any? Question: Thoughts on resolution?
Technical SEO | | Gyi0