404 in google webmaster tool
-
I have redesigned my website with new web address over 6 months ago and in the google webmaster tools it still shows my old urls with a reponse code 404 and still crawls those pages.
How do I make sure they don't appear anymore in the webmaster tool and don't get crawled anymore ?
or should I do a re-direct ?
Thank you,
-
Agree with John's response, but to add two points:
1. You can also set redirects manually via a .htaccess file if using Joomla. The format is very simple:
redirect 301 /oldpage.html /newpage.html
It takes some time, but I'm generally of the opinion that it's worth it when these appear in GWMT.
2. There's a feature in Webmaster Tools now to mark the errors as 'resolved'. That can help clean things up for you. If the errors aren't really resolved, Google states in the help documentation that they will eventually reappear for you to find again.
-
If you have new pages that are similar to your old pages, the old pages no longer need to exist. Usually this involves putting redirects in your conf file. I've never used Joomla, but I think the conf file would live outside of that (e.g. in Apache).
-
Your 404's should filter out over time as long as you are not linking to them or listing them in your XML sitemap. It can take quite a while. 301 them if you have proper pages to do so, but if you don't - just let it play out.
Google webmaster's stance on this is that 404's are natural, and they are more of an awareness alert, than a huge issue. If you see a spike make sure it is supposed to be happening.
-
That is what I thought but how do I redirect those knowing that they don't exist on my joomla website anymore ?
-
You should do redirects for these pages if you can. The probable reason they keep showing up and getting crawled is because people linked to those pages before you redid your site, and Google is continuing to come across those links. If you 301 redirect them to their new counterparts, people will be getting to the content they're looking for when they click those links, and also the link juice from those links will pass to the new pages, so the new pages should also rank better.
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
-
SEO Value of Google+?
Hi Mozers, Does having a Google+ page really impact SEO? Thanks, Yael
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | yaelslater1 -
Breadcrumbs not displaying on Google
Hello, We have set breadcrumbs on some of our pages (example: https://www.globecar.com/en/car-rental/locations/canada/qc/montreal/airport-yul) for testing purposes and for some reasons they are still not showing up on Google: http://screencast.com/t/BSHQqkP69r6F Yet when I test the page with Google Structured Data Testing tool all is good: http://screencast.com/t/Fzlz3zae Any ideas? Thanks, Karim
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GlobeCar0 -
How to find all 404 deadlinks - webmaster only allows 1000 to be downloaded...
Hi Guys I have a question...I am currently working on a website that was hit by a spam attack. The website was hacked and 1000's of adult censored pages were created on the wordpress site. The hosting company cleared all of the dubious files - but this has left 1000's of dead 404 pages. We want to fix the dead pages but Google webmaster only shows and allows you to download 1000. There are a lot more than 1000....does any know of any Good tools that allows you to identify all 404 pages? Thanks, Duncan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CayenneRed890 -
How to handle broken links to phantom pages appearing in webmaster tools
Hi,Would love to hear different experiences and thoughts on this one. We have a site that is plagued with 404's in the Webmaster Tools. A significant number of them have never existed, for instance affiliates have linked to them with the wrong URL or scraper sites have linked to them with a truncated version of the URL and an ellipsis eg; /my-nonexistent... What's the best way to handle these? If we do nothing and mark as fixed, they reappear in the broken links report. If we 301 redirect and mark as fixed they reappear. We tried 410 (gone forever) and marking as fixed; they re-appeared. We have a lot of legacy broken links and we would really like to clean up our WMT broken link profile - does anyone know of a way we can make these links to non extistent pages disappear once and for all? Many thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dancape0 -
Google News and Meta Title
Hi,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnPalmer
1. I just read this article: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-news-titles-h1-19876.html
Google want the same title. no problem. but what about the brand? for example
POST TITLE BLA BLU | My Brand
The "post title bla blu" is the H1 and title of the article and | My Brand is my brand...
I can keep it as is with the My brand? or remove it? what about posts with long title for example "POST TITLE BLA BLU POST TITLE BLA BLU | My Brand"
What is you suggestion, I know Google doesn't show all the text and we'll see "...". it's still important to write the brand name in the title or just the post title? (without the brand). Thanks,0 -
Why is our page will not being found by google?
Hi, We have a page that went live nearly 2 months ago. https://www.invoicestudio.com/Secure/InvoiceTemplate Why does google not notice it. Both site: URL's return nothing. site:www.invoicestudio.com/Secure/InvoiceTemplate site:www.invoicestudio.com/Secure This is an important page for us and do not understand why google doesn't like it. Hope you can help Thanks Andrew
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Studio330 -
Webmaster Tools: Total Indexed VS Ever Crawled
Ok, In WMT's under health > index status I have both total indexed and ever crawled ticked - It also looks like the data is broken up weekly. As an example say you have the following: Total Indexed: 1000 Ever Crawled: 5000 What is this say? It found 5000 pages but only indexed 1000 (20%). Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bondara0 -
Is Affiliate masking a problem for Google?
Does Google consider affiliate masking as unethical? I have a offer website that has 1000's of affiliate links that are masked. I feel google does not like masking URL's which is why my ranking started dropping. Can any one explain the context of affiliate masking please?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEOMad0