Custom 404 Page Indexing
-
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?
-
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.
-
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.
-
Have you checked the response code of your custom 404 page and made sure that it's returning a 404 and not a 200?
-
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
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 rel canonical tag used, which page does Google considers for ranking and indexing? A/B test scenario!
Hi Moz community, We have redesigned our website and launched for A/B testing using canonical tags from old website to new website pages, so there will be no duplicate content issues and new website will be shown to the half of the website visitors successfully to calculate the metrics. However I wonder how actually Google considers it? Which pages Google will crawl and index to consider for ranking? Please share your views on this for better optimisation. Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
Heres a puzzle for you... Htags on left hand nav for ecomm category pages
Hi Guys, So I am back asking more questions, but I am slowly learning 🙂 This next one, I have looked everywhere and I can't get my head around h tags on ecomm sites. I have looked at competitors and non competitors and still am not sure which is the right or wrong thing to do, specifically in this instance, category pages. Our I.T. dept is somewhat under resourced and I don't want to waste their time with test and trial on this particular issue. Category landing pages... There are shed loads of category listing pages on our site, at the moment the h1 tag for each sub-category is listed in the end path of the breadcrumb, there is no other spaces on the page accept the left hand navigation. Which is the better to use, breadcrumb or nav? We would have to totally recode our left hand nav which is pretty set up for the whole site. The reason I ask this question to you is because an SEO agency recommended that we... Add the H1 to the left hand navigation and make it customisable so that it is not the same as the breadcrumb keywords. I have attached an image of a competitor of ours that so the same thing currently, to show what I mean... Right now I am not sure what to tell the agency and what the right thing to do is. I read a post saying that we are actually doing the right thing under the circumstances. Does anyone have a best practise good example of generally what we should do for category pages? Your help is always muchly appreciated Kindest, Kay new
Web Design | | eLab_London0 -
Privacy Policy: index it/? And where to place it?
Hi Everyone, Two questions, first: should you allow google to index your privacy policy? Second: for a service based site (not e-commerce, not selling anything) should you put the policy in the footer so it's site wide or just on the "contact us" form page? Best, Ruben
Web Design | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Mobile tab for page speed insight
I am getting mobile error occurred problem.Can somebody help me about this issue? https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?hl=en&utm_source=wmx&utm_campaign=wmx_otherlinks&url=www.printez.com&tab=mobile Morris
Web Design | | PrintEZ0 -
Why aren't Images in G+ product page posts showing up in SERPs for brand searches?
Before 1-2 weeks ago, our G+ posts containing links to our product pages would show up in in SERPs (when searching for our brand name) with a thumbnail of the product image. Now, they do not (see image below for visual). Our tech team confirmed there hasn't been any coding change that might be to blame and I see that this isn't happening to other sites. Any idea what may be the problem here? tcnhLgy
Web Design | | znotes0 -
Will keyword optimization for a landing page impact SEO for subsequent pages?
For example, if I optimize keyword “pleurx” really well on our landing page, I'd like to know if subsequent
Web Design | | Todd_Kendrick
pages linking back to that landing page will rank higher than before for “pleurx”
even if “pleurx” wasn't optimized on the subsequent pages. Thanks! -Andrew0 -
Link Pages/Directory
Hello, What is best practise for dealing with alot of links. I was thinking of breaking them download to alphabet pages i.e. all A on one page etc... BUT should I then make the links clickable on this list OR that they load to a sub company page which has a clickable link to there website.
Web Design | | JohnW-UK0 -
Does on page links have an effect on SERP rankings with PANDA
I have been doing some competitive analysis basing my company on others and have noticed a pattern. Very high ranking sites seem to have limited the internal and external on page links on their subdomains to under 100. my site has a lot of links but all are relevant and lead to unique content. I am interested to know if anyone else has noticed this pattern in changes in the SERP results. bIs google now penalizing pages with to many on site nav links? And if a full site restructure is needed to allow google to index and rank these pages or if a it is a non issue and does not need to be addressed. Panda confuses me!!!!! HELP!
Web Design | | Brother220