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
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • 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.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • 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
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • 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.

      • 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. Custom 404 Page Indexing

    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.

    Custom 404 Page Indexing

    Web Design
    3
    5
    1449
    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.
    • sftravel
      sftravel last edited by

      Hi - We created a custom 404 page based on SEOMoz recommendations.  But.... the page seems to be receiving traffic via organic search.  Does it make more sense to set this page as "noindex" by its metatag?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • KeriMorgret
        KeriMorgret @sftravel last edited by

        Sorry that I missed this response! You want to find a server header checker tool (doing a Google search on those keywords will get you several such tools) and then put your 404 page into that tool. That will tell you if that page is truly serving up a 404.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • sftravel
          sftravel @KeriMorgret last edited by

          This is a great idea that I missed.  Any hints / links on setting this up correctly for a basic html site?  We are old school.  🙂

          KeriMorgret 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • KeriMorgret
            KeriMorgret last edited by

            Have you checked the response code of your custom 404 page and made sure that it's returning a 404 and not a 200?

            sftravel 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • Anthony_NorthSEO
              Anthony_NorthSEO last edited by

              Hi sftravel,

              Good question.

              There has to be some kind of keyword cannibalization happening if your custom 404 page is really ranking higher than the page you've optimized for those keywords.

              In short... Yes. No-Index your 404 page. Users seeing a 404 error page as a search result doesn't really do anything but harm your site's reputation, as it more than likely makes them think that the site is ill-maintained.

              The more important question is this:

              **Is the 404 page itself ranking and receiving the traffic or is there a page on your site that has moved and is now yielding the 404 error? **

              I'd suggest using the Queries and Landing Pages sections in the Traffic Sources (Search Engine Optimization) menu in Google Analytics  to track down what search queries are leading to your 404 page. Webmaster tools will work too. Im almost positive that it's simply a page that was ranking and has since moved that's causing the problem. If so, a simple 301 redirect to the correct URL should solve the problem without harming the ranking of the page or decreasing organic traffic. It may actually improve, as I'm sure the bounce rate for the clicks from that specific query will decrease.

              Hope this helps.

              Anthony

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • 1 / 1
              • First post
                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

              • Dan-Louis

                How to fix non-crawlable pages affected by CSS modals?

                I stumbled across something new when doing a site audit in SEMRUSH today ---> Modals. The case: Several pages could not be crawled because of (modal:) in the URL. What I know: "A modal is a dialog box/popup window that is displayed on top of the current page" based on CSS and JS. What I don't know: How to prevent crawlers from finding them.

                Web Design | | Dan-Louis
                0
              • Billy_gym

                How is Single Page Application (SPA) bad for SEO

                Hi guys. I am quite inspired of SPA technique. It's really amazing when all your interaction with the site is going on the fly and you don't see any page reloads. I've started implementing the site with this instruction and already found nice guys to make the design. The only downside of the using SPA which I can see **is the **SEO part. That's because the URL does not really change and different pages don't have their unique URL addresses. 
                Actually they have, but it looks like: yoursite.com/#/products yoursite.com/#/prices yoursite.com/#/contact So all of them goes after # and being just anchors. For Google this mean all of these pages is just yoursite.com/ My question is what is really proven method to implement the URL structure in Single Page Application, so all the pages indexed by Google correctly (sorry I don't mention the other search engines because of market share). The other question, of course, is examples. It will be great to see real life site examples, better authority sites, which use SPA technique and well indexed by search engines.

                Web Design | | Billy_gym
                1
              • JustinMurray

                WordPress Category page title h1 or h2

                Hi friends, I know this is a minor technical change, but we are in an extremely competitive market and I don't want to have any points against us. On our WordPress Category pages i.e. http://www.domain.com/category/�tegory-title%/ I looked at the code behind the the Title of the category page, which is "Browsing: %Category Title%" The code is an h2. I look at the posts in the category archive below, and those are also h2's. The theme preview is here and you can click on Entertainment - Reviews to see exactly what I'm referring to - http://themeforest.net/item/smartmag-responsive-retina-wordpress-magazine/full_screen_preview/6652608 I changed the code for the "Browsing: %Category Title%" to h1, which I believe is more consistent and standard formatting. 1. Is this a correct technical on-page optimization? 2. Would it be beneficial to remove "Browsing"?

                Web Design | | JustinMurray
                0
              • Ron10

                Should i not use hyphens in web page titles? Google Penalty for hyphens?

                all the page titles  in my site have hyphens between the words like this: http://texas.com/texas-plumbers.html I have seen tests where hyphenated domain names ranked lower than non hyphenated domain names.  Does this mean my pages are being penalized for hyphens or is this only in the domain that it is penalized? If I create new pages should I not use hyphens in the page titles when there are two or more words in the title? If I changed all my page titles to eliminate the hyphens, I would lose all my rankings correct?  My site is 12 years old and if I changed all these titles I'm guessing that each page would be thrown in the google sandbox for several months, is this true? Thanks mozzers!

                Web Design | | Ron10
                0
              • BobAnderson

                Link colour on page?

                I always thought that the link colour has to be different from text colour? I have come across a site http://www.printandpackaging.co.uk/ and it has made me question this belief, they seem to only have bolded the link which would be very nice if this is  fine.

                Web Design | | BobAnderson
                0
              • HMK-NL

                Best layout pages for SEO

                Dear all, what would be the ideal layout of a webpage for SEO? How would a homepage and landingspage look like? Thanks in advance! Best regards, Ben

                Web Design | | HMK-NL
                0
              • superTallDan

                Duplicate Content for index.html

                In the Crawl Diagnostics Summary, it says that I have two pages with duplicate content which are: www.mywebsite.com/ www.mywebsite.com/index.html I read in a Dream Weaver tutorial that you should name your home page "index.html" and then you can let www.mywebsite.com automatically direct the user to index.html.  Is this a bug in SEOMoz's crawler or is it a real problem with my site? Thank you, Dan

                Web Design | | superTallDan
                0
              • eseyo

                Site-wide footer links or single "website credits" page?

                I see that you have already answered this question before back in 2007 (http://www.seomoz.org/qa/view/2163), but wanted to ask your current opinion on the same question: Should I add a site-wide footer link to my client websites pointing to my website, or should I create a "website credits" page on my clients site, add this to the footer and then link from within this page out to my website?

                Web Design | | eseyo
                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
              • Digital Marketers
              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.