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.
Why is redirecting all broken pages to the homepage is a bad idea?
-
I have a site where all broken pages are redirected to the homepage. I've been told that it's a bad idea in terms of SEO. I just can't figure out why
-
One SEO implication that redirecting all of your error 404s to the home page is that it could lead to Google and other search engines to flag your site for having 'soft 404 errors.'
Best practice is to have a custom 404 page, that returns a 404 message, that then helps the end user find what they are looking for. Either a list of top categories, a search box, or a phone # to call tech support.
Here's what Google says about why you shouldn't do this:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/181708?hl=enReturning a code other than 404 or 410 for a non-existent page (or redirecting users to another page, such as the homepage, instead of returning a 404) can be problematic. Firstly, it tells search engines that there’s a real page at that URL. As a result, that URL may be crawled and its content indexed. Because of the time Googlebot spends on non-existent pages, your unique URLs may not be discovered as quickly or visited as frequently and your site’s crawl coverage may be impacted (also, you probably don’t want your site to rank well for the search query [File not found]).
We recommend that you always return a 404 (Not found) or a 410 (Gone) response code in response to a request for a non-existing page. You can improve the user experience by configuring your site to display a custom 404 page when returning a 404 response code. For example, you could create a page containing a list of your most popular pages, or a link to your home page, or a feedback link. You can also use the Webmaster Tools Custom 404 widget to add a search box and more site search options to your site. But it’s important to remember that it’s not enough to just create a page that displays a 404 message. You also need to return the correct 404 or 410 HTTP response code.
-
Thank you for that clarification.
-
"I have a site where all broken pages are redirected to the homepage. I've been told that it's a bad idea in terms of SEO. I just can't figure out why :)"
"I am not sure what type of site you have but I have a Ecommerce site and when I remove a product I redirect it to the category page it was in."
You've given two different statements. Best practice to to 301 to the most relevant page.
You can also redirect to similar products.
-
I am not sure what type of site you have but I have a Ecommerce site and when I remove a product I redirect it to the category page it was in.
-
You are meant to redirect to the closest relevant page if you redirect to the home page it looks like your trying to cheat Google into ranking your home page. It also means the redirect are not given as much value as if you were to redirect to a relevant page.
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
-
When to re-write and redirect a blog url?
What are best practices for rewriting (and then redirecting) blog URLs? I refresh old blog posts on our blog every month and many of them have URLs that are too long or could be improved. However, many of them also already get decent organic traffic and I don't want to lose traffic due to a URL redirect. Are there any best practices or "rules" I can follow when deciding whether to re-write and redirect blog URLs?
Content Development | Oct 26, 2023, 11:08 AM | Emily.R.Monrovia
Thanks!0 -
Are FAQ's Pages Still Useful?
I know there has been a lot of discussion lately about FAQs pages and I'm wondering when and if they are still warranted useful and what if they have positive or negative effects on page rankings. Regards, John Brown
Content Development | Aug 20, 2022, 5:17 PM | JohnBrown75
Essay Writer0 -
At what point to stop comments on a blog? Do too many comments hurt the page?
I have a page that's ranking pretty well, and driving sales. That page is starting to get 10+ comments per day and is starting to get quite long. I was wondering if there is a point where I should disable the comments? My gut tells me that people interacting with the page, and Google seeing responses with the users SHOULD be a good thing not bad. But, then I think that a majority of the content of the page is no longer the article, but the comments. All the comments are good, non spammy and directly related to the topic. People just asking questions, etc. Good engagement, I should be happy right?
Content Development | Feb 11, 2015, 2:54 PM | DemiGR0 -
How many words per page?
I know this has been answered before, but I don't think it has been in about a year (and we all know how quickly the SEO landscape can change). We're having a little debate on it right now and I'd be curious to get some feedback from the community. What is the minimum number of words you would use on a page? Does it matter to you if it's a second tier (website.com/x) or third tier (website.com/x/y) page? It's always a tough sell on design between trying to keep it clean and trying to provide a lot of useful information. I'd be curious what your thoughts are. Thanks! -Adam
Content Development | Jul 10, 2017, 10:27 AM | AdamWormann1 -
Pages and categories with the same name?
I manage a wordpress based site that is needing to under go a site architecture overhaul. the site is christ.org and one of the problems is it has 89 pages but really only 4 are navigatable (not a word apparently). The site also has over 400 posts so categories and parent pages are both definitely needed. One option is I convert a lot of the pages into posts, but would that happen to break any links pointing to those pages turned posts? Or another option is to keep the pages and posts and create a bunch of subpages, then I would most likely end up with similarly named categories and top level pages. I would guess the name of the category needs to be unique from page titles right? And not just unique but very much differentiated than any page title (not posts but page titles). Maybe what I need to do is convert the pages that are not really unique into posts and put them in the category it fits with. And then keep those that are unique as top level pages. The architecture needs some serious work I think 🙂 Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Content Development | Oct 2, 2013, 5:23 AM | ThridHour0 -
Can you have too many words on a page for SEO?
One line of thinking is that you can not have too many words on a page because the more words you have the higher the chances that a long tail phrase will attract traffic. But can you go overboard with this? Is there a limit to the number of words on a page in terms of SEO?
Content Development | Aug 16, 2012, 12:12 AM | ProjectLabs0 -
What are tier 1, tier 2, tier 3 keywords (pages)?
I am seeing these terms, but for the life of mine I can't understand what they are. Could anybody explain that in layman's terms? Thanks.
Content Development | Apr 4, 2012, 9:18 PM | VinceWicks0 -
How many pages is too many to add to a site at one time?
I have quite a bit of excellent content articles at my disposal and we would like to increase the number of pages on our site. I could, theoretically add 100's of pages at a time. Does anyone have a good sense of how much content added to a sight in mass looks bad to Google? My plan is to add approximately 50 pages a week to our site, which already has 4000 pages of content. This is relevant content, since we are a custom writing service and all topics are covered. Our content is what gives us great organic hits and orders. However, I would like to add more than 50 a week...how many is too many? Thanks and I appreciate thoughts and feedback! Karen
Content Development | Mar 28, 2012, 1:00 PM | eworld0