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. Digital Marketing
  3. Web Design
  4. Is it necessary to redirect every Error page (404 or 500) found?

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.

Is it necessary to redirect every Error page (404 or 500) found?

Web Design
3
5
2.3k
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.
  • jmansd
    jmansd last edited by Jun 13, 2011, 6:14 PM

    If I have Hundreds of pages with 404 and 500 erros should set up 301 redirects for all of them?  Some of the pages have external links, some don't.

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • RyanKent
      RyanKent @jmansd last edited by Jun 13, 2011, 7:05 PM Jun 13, 2011, 7:05 PM

      There are a few reasons this can happen. Each tool crawls the web at different times and see different things. I would recommend at least investigating any issues you find regardless of which tool you used to discover it.

      Personally, I would pay good money for a tool from Google which used their algorithms and data, but that isn't an option so we do the best we can with the available tools. Google WMT and SEOmoz crawl reports are two parts of that solution for me.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • Doc_Sheldon
        Doc_Sheldon last edited by Jun 13, 2011, 6:40 PM Jun 13, 2011, 6:37 PM

        Josh- I'm of the opinion that there is no tool in the wild that is consistently accurate, in any regard, including detection of 404 errors. There are a number of things that can cause one tool to detect an error, while another won't. Personally, I compare the results of all the different tools I use, and hopefully find a consensus. Failing that, I double check with them all, and look for consistent results. If nothing changes, you may just have to "consider the source" and decide in which tool you have greater confidence.

        Not much help, I realize, but sometimes that's just the way it is. 😉

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • jmansd
          jmansd @RyanKent last edited by Jun 13, 2011, 6:28 PM Jun 13, 2011, 6:28 PM

          Thanks-

          Some of the errors came from Opensiteexporer, but are not in Google webmaster tools.  What do you think about this?

          RyanKent 1 Reply Last reply Jun 13, 2011, 7:05 PM Reply Quote 0
          • RyanKent
            RyanKent last edited by Jun 13, 2011, 6:28 PM Jun 13, 2011, 6:22 PM

            500 errors should not happen. I would recommend determining the root issue and resolving it.

            404s are a natural part of the internet. There is nothing inherently wrong with your site having some pages that offer 404 errors.

            With that said, I recommend taking any pages with value that 404 and 301 them to the most appropriate page on your site. It will allow your link juice to be retained, and offer your users a better experience.

            I would also recommend offering a soft 404 error page that offers a site map or other navigation help.

            jmansd 1 Reply Last reply Jun 13, 2011, 6:28 PM Reply Quote 3
            • 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

            • McTaggart

              Location of body text on page - at top or bottom - does it matter for SEO?

              Hi - I'm just looking at the text on a redesigned homepage. They have moved all the text to the very bottom of the page (which is quite common with lots of designers, I notice - I usually battle to move the important text back up to the top). I have always ensured the important text comes at the top, to some extent - does it matter where on the page the text comes, for SEO? Are there any studies you can point me to? Thanks for your help, Luke

              Web Design | Jan 27, 2017, 12:22 PM | McTaggart
              2
            • jwanner

              How long should an old site redirecting to a new site remain activated on a server?

              Once I switch a site to a new domain (with links to corresponding/relative pages), will I have to keep the old site live forever for those links to work, or how long should I wait before I inactivate the old site on our server?

              Web Design | Jun 28, 2015, 12:58 PM | jwanner
              0
            • CliqStudios

              Reasons Why Our Website Pages Randomly Loads Without Content

              I know this is not a marketing question but this community is very dev savvy so I'm hoping someone can help me. At random times we're finding that our website pages load without the main body content. The header, footer and navigation loads just fine. If you refresh, it's fine but that's not a solution. Happens on Chrome, IE and Firefox, testing with multiple browser versions Happens across various page types - but seems to be only the main content section/container Happens while on the company network, as well as externally Happens after deleting cookies, temporary internet files and restarting computer We are using a CMS that is virtually unheard of - Bridgeline/Iapps Codebase is .net Our IT/Dev group keeps pushing back, blaming it on cookies or Chrome plugins because they apparently are unable to "recreate the problem". This has been going on for months and it's a terrible experience for the user to have. It's also not great when landing PPC visitors on pages that load with no content. If anyone has ideas as to why this may be happening I would really appreciate it. I'm not sure if links are allowed, by today the issue happened on this page serversdirect.com/dm/geek-biz Linking to an image example below knEUzqd

              Web Design | Oct 20, 2014, 9:27 AM | CliqStudios
              0
            • skehoe

              4XX (Client Error) on Wordpress Wesbite

              I've just taken over the management of a website and am getting 4x  4XX (client Error) issues. Example: http://inter-italia.com/en/wp-login.php?action=lostpassword Can anyone give any guidance as how to fix this wordpress? I also see a lot of 'temporary redirects' due to multilingual plugin - is there anything I can do to fix this?

              Web Design | Jan 8, 2014, 8:09 AM | skehoe
              0
            • Ron10

              What seo benefit does setting up a photo gallery where each photo is a separate web page?

              what seo benefit does setting up a photo gallery where each photo is a separate web page?  My old SEO guy set up my photo gallery like that claiming that because each photo was a separate page, it added a big seo benefit and i never understood what he was talking about.  Maybe alt text on the photo with key phrases in it pointing to my other pages to give my site a theme for google?  I'm not really sure.   He has since moved away and i am considering redoing the photo gallery to multiple images on one page to be more user friendly to my users.  This photo gallery is 3 years old and the photos might have some page rank to them helping my site so i don't want to remove this gallery if there really is a benefit to it and it will hurt my site.  I once removed four static page rank 3 pages from my site that weren't used for my site anymore and my rankings dropped 5 positions.  Thoughts anyone? Thanks! Ron

              Web Design | Sep 25, 2015, 6:02 PM | Ron10
              0
            • jaychow

              Does it do harm if you add a rel="canonical" tag on a page that doesn't need it?

              If a page is clearly unique and there is obviously no canonical tag needed, does it hurt anything if one has been added?

              Web Design | Feb 5, 2013, 6:55 PM | jaychow
              0
            • CFSSEO

              What else should you call the Home page?

              In the menu bar and footer the main page is called Home.  Would it confuse people to rename it to Business Name Home or Business Name? How do you handle this?

              Web Design | Jul 26, 2012, 1:49 PM | CFSSEO
              0
            • SeMeAntoja

              I have a button that repeats it self many times on same page, what can i do so button name does not affect my SEO?

              I have a shopping car button named "Add to car" but it repeats on many pages on my website, is this affecting my seo? If yes.. What should i do so it does not affect? Should button appear on hover? Thanks

              Web Design | Nov 5, 2011, 12:50 AM | SeMeAntoja
              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.