Is it a problem to use a 301 redirect to a 404 error page, instead of serving directly a 404 page?
-
We are building URLs dynamically with apache rewrite.
When we detect that an URL is matching some valid patterns, we serve a script which then may detect that the combination of parameters in the URL does not exist. If this happens we produce a 301 redirect to another URL which serves a 404 error page,So my doubt is the following: Do I have to worry about not serving directly an 404, but redirecting (301) to a 404 page? Will this lead to the erroneous original URL staying longer in the google index than if I would serve directly a 404?
Some context. It is a site with about 200.000 web pages and we have currently 90.000 404 errors reported in webmaster tools (even though only 600 detected last month).
-
in webmaster tools 404 are going gradually down for desktop and now suddenly going up for mobile for pages that are not linked to for months.
-
I suspect you may be right.
How long ago did they appear?
Are they starting to go gradually down or up?
-
thanks a lot SilverDoor.
The huge number of errors, were caused by a problem with the internal site architecture several months ago which got thousdands of pages in the index that should not exist (and also have no other related relevanted pages). This architecture is fixed now. Still for some reason mobile crawler of webmaster tools is returning now suddenly lots of 404 for mobile view, which I suspect are coming from old 404 in google cache.
-
Hi,
You should never redirect to a 404 page.
Search Engines are going to see this as an error and may even think you are trying to manipulate users around your site.
I would redirect the pages to a relevant page on your site.
With regards to the huge number of errors now appearing, I need some more details to answer the question:
- How many 404's would you expect there to be (give an estimate)?
- How many 301 redirects do you think would have been implemented with the script?
- Have you recently changed anything else with the HTTP Status Codes?
SilverDoor
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
-
How long will old pages stay in Google's cache index. We have a new site that is two months old but we are seeing old pages even though we used 301 redirects.
Two months ago we launched a new website (same domain) and implemented 301 re-directs for all of the pages. Two months later we are still seeing old pages in Google's cache index. So how long should I tell the client this should take for them all to be removed in search?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Liamis0 -
I've got duplicate pages. For example, blog/page/2 is the same as author/admin/page/2\. Is this something I should just ignore, or should I create the author/admin/page2 and then 301 redirect?
I'm going through the crawl report and it says I've got duplicate pages. For example, blog/page/2 is the same as author/admin/page/2/ Now, the author/admin/page/2 I can't even find in WordPress, but it is the same thing as blog/page/2 nonetheless. Is this something I should just ignore, or should I create the author/admin/page2 and then 301 redirect it to blog/page/2?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | shift-inc0 -
When is it time to kill 301 redirects
3 months we updated our site design design and as such lots of page urls changed. At the time we 301 redirected about 100 pages. (All pages are on the same domain - 301 redirects like .com/about-us/company to .com/company) Anyhow my question is should I leave these redirects active indefinitely or kill them assuming value has passed through by now? Your Thoughts are welcomed. Thanks, Glen.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdvanceSystems0 -
301 redirect
I have 2 websites, lets call them Website A and Website B. Website A is a commercial website, website B is a 7 years old blog. Website B has many natural, high quality BL, including some from Nytimes, etc. I want to integrate the blog (B) into the commercial website (A). The idea behind this thought is to compress the two websites, it is easier to have everything in one place. I will do this with 301 redirect via Webmaster tools, htaccess etc. The uRL structure will remain the same: eg: websiteB/post-title/ -> websiteA/post title What will happen with my quality BLs? Is there any chance to be penalized by Google? What will happen with the PR of the 2 sites? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jasmin281 -
Crawling error or somthing else that male my page unvisible ( Simple problem, no solved yet )
Hi, my problem isn't solved and nobody was able to answer my question: why isn't my page poltronafraubrescia.zenucchi.it indexed for the keyword poltrona frau Brescia? The same page on another domain was four on the ranking reluts... And now it redirects to the new one... An you explain me how to proceed? I trust you... Help me...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | guidoboem0 -
301 vs. 404
If a listing on a website is no longer available to display is it better to resolve to a 301 redirect or use a 404? I know from an SEO point of view a 301 will pass on the link value, but is that as valuable as saying tto the user hey that page is no lonoger available try something else?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AU-SEO0 -
301 Redirect - How Long Until Recovery?
How long after one moves a page and sets up the 301s should the site take to regain its previous rankings? Context: i've ported a site to a new framework. Along the way, several high ranked pages needed to have new URLs setup, as well as the site moved from www.domain.com to simply domain.com. About 1 week after the change, the site's traffic went down 70% and has been there for about another 2 weeks. I suppose it could be something about the new framework that is causing problems though according to SEOMoz tools, the new framework is checking out pretty well. I assume the problem is reconciling all those old www inbound links with the new non-www location. It is all 301'd however ... so it should be working, but is not. So my questions are: 1. How long should it take Google to reconcile these changes and put us back to original SERP positions 2. is there something inherently problematic with switching from www to non-www?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NealCabage0 -
How to 301 redirect ASP.net URLS
I have a situation where a site that was ASP.net has been replaced with a WordPress site. I've performed a Open Site Explorer analysis and found that most of the old pages, ie www.i3bus.com/ProductCategorySummary.aspx?ProductCategoryId=63 are returning a HTTP Status = NO DATA ... when followed ends up at the 404 catch-all page. Can I code the standard 301 Redirects in the .htaccess file for these ASP URLs? If not, I'm open to suggestions.... Thanks Bill
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Marvo0