Locating 404 Page Errors for Deletion
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On my SEOmoz report, there are several 404 pages that I assume need deletion. Yes? When I am looking at my pages from the back-end of WordPress, how do I identify these to delete or fix them? In the list of pages I have created, it is not at all apparent when I click into "edit" the page that any of these are broken pages. I think the 404 pages are urls from pages that I changed the url to be more seo friendly, but they don't really exist. I hope this makes sense - it is baffling to me : )
Thank you for any insight and help with getting these cleared. The errors are listed below from the report.
Sheryl
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404 : Error
http://durangocodentists.com/durango-dentists-why-greg-mann/dentists-in-durango-co/Cosmetic_Dentistry_Services_Teeth_Whitening_Montezuma_CO.html 404 1 0 404 : Error
http://durangocodentists.com/durango-dentists-why-greg-mann/dentists-in-durango-co/General_Dentistry_Services_White_Fillings_Montezuma_CO.html 404 1 0 404 : Error
http://durangocodentists.com/durango-dentists-why-greg-mann/dentists-in-durango-co/Request_an_Appointment.html 404 1 0 404 : Error
http://durangocodentists.com/videos/repairing-teeth/pid%3A4078865 404 1 0 404 : Error
http://durangocodentists.com/videos/teeth-whitening/pid%3A4078865 404 1 0 404 : Error
http://durangocodentists.com/videos/veneers/pid%3A4078865 | 404 | 1 | 0 |
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Thank you, Phil! Makes sense now!
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Hi Sheryl,
If those URLs are returning a 404 Error, then you don't need to delete them -- they're already gone :).
The 404 error is simply a response code which says the page could not be found. The likely reason for this is exactly what you said in your question: since you renamed your URLs, you basically deleted the old URL and replaced it with a new one.
In general, there's nothing that you NEED to do, but here are a few suggestions:
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If you link to any of those 404 URLs on your site anywhere, then be sure to change those links to point to the correct, new URLs.
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Were any of these old URLs very popular? Did they get a lot of links and a lot of traffic? Are people still trying to go to them? If so, then you can 301 redirect those URLs to point to the new, correct URLs.
I hope that this helps. If you have any other questions then just let me know.
Phil
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You can easily identify and redirect 404 pages in WordPress with this plugin - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/404-redirected/
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