Instead of a 301, my client uses a 302 to custom 404
-
I've found about 900 instances of decommissioned pages being redirected via 302 to a 404 custom page, even when there's a comparable page elsewhere on the site or on a new subdomain.
My recommendation would be to always do a 301 from the legacy page to the new page, but since they're are so many instances of this 302->404 it seems to be standard operating procedure by the dev team.
Given that at least one of these pages has links coming from 48 root domains, wouldn't it obviously be much better to 301 redirect it to pass along that equity? I don't get why the developers are doing this, and I have to build a strong case about what they're losing with this 302->404 protocol.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on WHY the dev team has settled on this solution, in addition to what suffers as a result. I think I know, but would love some more expert input.
-
Of course they aren't seeing a drop in traffic to comparable pages. Those pages are fighting under their own steam. If you send a customer/prospect to the right page, the first time, they'll likely see an increase in traffic.
It sounds like they're talking about 'what is' rather than 'what could be', which in our opinion is likely better. So I guess you could make the business case that incoming referrals are bouncing when they could be buying. Hopefully there's tracking code of some sort on the faux 404 page.
-
Travis, thanks - in addition to my comment to Wiqas, I think that the usability is a big point to make. See, the analysts will come back to me and say, "we're not seeing a drop in any traffic to comparable pages." I'm going to do an in-depth look into Page Authority for a related report, but I agree 100% on the usability point. We do have comparable pages...why the heck wouldn't we 301? Esp. when external sites are still occasionally use the legacy URL....
Thx.
-
Thanks - yea, and it's funny because most of the analysts and devs I talk to say, "oh, 302 is just as good as 301, these days." Everything else I read runs contrary to that. Thanks Wiqas.
-
Hey,
302 redirect is mostly used for temporary situations and it fits to very few situations. 302 redirect doesn't pass link juice to pointing URL.
Dev Team seems to be conservative in approach. This approach was widely used but it's not recommended now. I recommend 301 Redirect even I don't know exact situation.
You can get more guidance about redirects here: http://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection
I hope, this will help!
Regards
-
I would imagine they took that route because it's fast/easy. I would find using a site that cares that little about usability more than a little annoying. Imagine hitting page after page of 'whoops' pages. It's not something anyone wants to do.
There should be 301s put in place for relevant pages with good/clean links. Then they should 410 unwanted pages. Both the search engines and site visitors win.
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
-
Redirect for Soft 404 or 404?
I have a client site that displays properties from the MLS. Once these properties sell they're removed from the MLS and they stop showing up on her site. This would result in a 404 error, but right now any property that's not being found is being 301 redirected back to the property page. I see how this makes sense for a user, but Google is saying there's an increase in Soft 404 errors and I've read that this could negatively affect organic traffic. Should I keep the redirect for removed properties or should I have it serve a 404 with a message that the house you're looking for may have sold and link to the property page? Is it better to have Soft 404 errors or 404 errors?
Technical SEO | | JaredDetroit0 -
Unexplainable 404 in my Wordpress Monitor
Hi Guys, We started a new website (far from complete) and i'm fixing some SEO problems. I have a SEO 404 monitor plugin and he gives me strange 404's that i can't find: https://compleetverkleed.nl/feestkleding/www.compleetverkleed.nl/feestkleding
Technical SEO | | Happy-SEO
https://compleetverkleed.nl/rode-peper-pak/www.compleetverkleed.nl/feestkleding
https://compleetverkleed.nl/new-kids-kleding/www.compleetverkleed.nl/feestkleding
https://compleetverkleed.nl/fee-kostuum/www.compleetverkleed.nl/feestkleding The 404 error code comes due to a double domain URL, and it happens only on the /feestkleding subdomain. When i check my original page, for example https://compleetverkleed.nl/rode-peper-pak/ there is only 1 internal link to /feestkleding but when i click on it, it works fine. Does anyone know how to fix this problem or where to look to see why this is happening? (it happens on every page, not the 4 above > starting to come through in webmastertools also) 2.
https://compleetverkleed.nl/pa_categorie-sitemap.xml
https://compleetverkleed.nl/product_shipping_class-sitemap.xml
https://compleetverkleed.nl/featured_item_category-sitemap.xml
https://compleetverkleed.nl/post_tag-sitemap.xml
https://compleetverkleed.nl/featured_item_tag-sitemap.xml This 404's are completely new for me and i don't know where to find this 😞 Thanks!2 -
Using category pages in Wordpress
In our niche we have one main keyword, which represents the entire category. We are using wordpress. I am trying to understand the best URL structure and wonder if the below is a good approach: http://domain.com/keyword This category page will be written to contain an article on the subject. The posts that are put into that category will subsequently appear on this page, below that article. Each of those posts would be targeting a related keyword. e.g. I would write a post which has, as the main target keyword: "MainKeyword training" and another post, which would be targeting "MainKeyword techniques" ... (and so on). Thanks for your advice. Andrew
Technical SEO | | seowhiskey0 -
301 Redirect with index.asp
I am very new to all of this so forgive the newbie questions I will get better. Ok so after starting a campaign I see that I have many issues including where some pages are being deemed as duplicate content. 1. The report says the http://lucid8.com has duplicate content on 2 other pages 2. When I look at them it shows that http://lucid8.com/index.asp and http://www.lucid8.com are duplicates. 3. Really these are the exactly the same page because the default page that is opened for www.lucid8.com http://www.lucid8.com etc always opens the index.asp page. 4. Now I read that I should do permanent redirects and how to do this via IIS and I tried to do a redirect from index.asp to www.lucid8.com but that does not work because www.lucid8.com is pointing to index.asp and so we end up in a circle. So the question is how do I get rid of these duplicate page references without causing problems. Thanks
Technical SEO | | TroyW0 -
404 Errors & Redirection
Hi, I'm working with someone who recently had two websites redesigned. The old permalink structure consisted of domain/year/month/date/post-name. Their developer changed the new permalink structure to domain/post-name, but apparently he didn't redirect the old URLs to the new ones so we're finding that links from external sites result in 404 errors (once I remove the date in the URL, the links work fine). Each site has 3-4 years worth of blog posts, so there are quite a few that would need to be changed. I was thinking of using the Redirection plugin - would that be the best way to fix this sitewide on both sites?Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks, Carolina
Technical SEO | | csmm0 -
Should I do a 301 redirect
Hi Everyone, Hope you can help me out here. I have .co.uk & .ie website with similar content. On a particular section of the .co.uk website it is updated daily (Q&As, Blog posts etc) .ie does have this section but to a lesser degree, no daily updates etc, I was wondering if we should simply do a 301 redirect when someone is on the .ie website to .co.uk, it means the user is getting a much better experience however not entirely the consequences from search engines on this? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Paul781 -
Canoical tags how do i use them
Hi i have this coming up on the report for my url www.in2town.co.uk but i am not sure how to use the canonical tag. I am using joomla and would be grateful if anyone could please give me advice on how to use this. Canonical URL Tag Usage Moderate fix <dl> <dt>Number of Canonical tags</dt> <dd>0</dd> <dt>Explanation</dt> <dd>Although the canonical URL tag is generally thought of as a way to solve duplicate content problems, it can be extremely wise to use it on every (unique) page of a site to help prevent any query strings, session IDs, scraped versions, licensing deals or future developments to potentially create a secondary version and pull link juice or other metrics away from the original. We believe the canonical URL tag is a best practice to help prevent future problems, even if nothing is specifically duplicate/problematic today.</dd> <dt>Recommendation</dt> <dd>Add a canonical URL tag referencing this URL to the header of the page.</dd> <dd>many thanks for your help
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-184886
</dd> </dl>0 -
404 vs. 200?
Is it better to have an error page return a 404 or 200? If I change it to 200, will I still be able to see reports of 404's and/ or broken links? Is there a valid SEO reason that Google would have for not wanting error pages to return 200? In other words, is there any SEO reason to absolutely change it to return a 404? I would rather let it return 200 if no priority reason to change. [title edited by staff to provide clarity]
Technical SEO | | cindyt-170380