Correct usage of expired pages -410 or not?
-
Hi Mozzes,
We're running a property portal that carries around 200.000 listings in two languages. All listings are updated several times per day and when one of our ads expire we report this via the "410 Gone", and place a link to our users: This ad has expired, click here to search for similar properties.
Looking at our competition I seems that here are many different ways to deal with this, one popular being a 301 to the corresponding search result.
We've tried to get directions from Google on what method they prefere, but as usual dead silence.
Advices are mostly welcome.
-
Matthew,
How would you go about tracking user vs bot traffic on 410 header pages? We see that we got plenty of hits on the pages via Awstats, but no means to measure what sort of traffic these hits really are?
Best
Johan
-
Thanks a lot for that Matthew,
I will look into it, but my gut tells me that we do not get a lot of traffic from these pages. Google visits though, tons, so hopefully the 301s will bring us some more nice juice.
Right after posting I ran into this great post about the subject too http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-should-you-handle-expired-content
However, few words are mentionend about the 410.
Thanks
Johan
-
Hi Johan,
A 410 response code is perfectly acceptable for expired pages. With a 410, you are communicating that page is "gone" and expired content usually is "gone", so it fits. However, with 410 you are going to see that page fall out of the index and that page will lose traffic (assuming it would get any given that some expired content likely won't get any traffic since it is no longer timely) and, more importantly, lose link value (if you had any links to those pages).
As for 301 redirects, I'd start tracking visits to the 410 expired page and links to the 410 expired pages. How much traffic are you getting? How engaged is that traffic? How many links are there and are they good quality? Links are easy enough to track in OSE and for tracking traffic you can use Google events (http://antezeta.com/news/404-errors-google-analytics).
When I see a lot of links or a lot of traffic (especially traffic that leaves), I've converted a 410 page into a 301 redirect that goes to our best (programmatic) guess. For instance, 301 redirect the user to a search for the properties in a similar location or similar price range (or etc.). What I've often found is that when I get the the user redirected to the best page, I'm more likely to see them engage and use the site. Along with the user benefits, I've also see that help with overall organic performance when there are a lot of links back to these pages.
Hope that helps. Thanks,
Matthew
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
-
Noindex follow on checkout pages in 2017
Hi,
Algorithm Updates | | DGAU
My website really consists of 2 separate sites. Product site:
• Website with product pages.
• These product pages have SEO optimised content. Booking engine & checkout site:
• When a user clicks 'Book' on one of the product pages on the aforementioned product site they go to a seaparate website which is a booking engine and checkout.
• These pages are not quality, SEO optimised content, they only perform the function of booking and buying. Q1) Should I set 'noindex follow' via the meta tag on all pages of the 'Booking engine and checkout' site?
ie. Q2) should i add anything to the book buttons on the product site? I am hoping all this will somehow help concentrate the SEO juice onto the Product Site's pages by declaring the Booking engine and Checkout sites pages to be 'not of any content value'.0 -
Dealing with Omitted Page
For my most competitive term, the wrong page ranks (and not well either). The landing page I built for it has never shown up for that term except after I include the omitted results. The page that does rank is category page page above it. All that's fine, because neither page was all that great...BUT, I have completely re-written the content for the landing page, got local area pictures, local testimonials and a video. So here's my question: Should I put all that content on the landing page that's been omitted or tweak the page that ranks and put it there? To me it makes the most sense to put the content on the page that has been omitted, but I don't know how google treats pages that have been omitted in the past. Is it going to have some sort of bias against the page, because it was omitted so many times earlier for that keyword? Or, will it be treated just like any other page, and if the content is good enough, then it will rank just fine. If anyone's dealt with this, then I'd love to hear all about it! Thanks, Ruben
Algorithm Updates | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Diluting your authority - adding pages diluting rankings of other pages?
I'm looking after a site that has around 400 pages. All of these pages rank pretty well for the KW they are targetting. My question is: if we add another 400 pages without doing any link building work, holding DA the same, 1) would the rankings of those 400 previously good pages diminish? and 2) Would the new pages, as more and more new ones are created, rank less and less well?
Algorithm Updates | | xoffie0 -
Should social widgets be the kind that shares/likes a page, or the kind that adds followers to a brand social page?
I'm wondering if the social widgets on my blog should create a share/like referencing the page or should the social widget create a follower to my brands page on a particular social network? Any ideas?
Algorithm Updates | | salesduke0 -
Not necessary to have keywords in the page? Do you agree?
I am being told by my SEO consultants that: "According to present Google algorithm it is not necessary to have keywords in the page. What is more required is the content is relevant to the page and whether visitors will stay on that page or not. If visitors stay for a longer time in your site it add bonus to the ranking of the site. So I think it is not necessary to add key phrases in the content." Do you agree?
Algorithm Updates | | PegCorwin0 -
Why do in-site search result pages rank better than my product pages?
Maybe this is a common SERP for a generic product type but I'm seeing it a lot more often. Here is an example SERP "rolling stools". The top 4 results are dynamic in-site search pages from Sears, ebay and Amazon (among others). I understand their influence and authority but why would a search return a dynamic in-site SERP instead of a solid product page. A better question would be - How do I get my in-site SERPs to rank or how do I get my client's page to rise above the #5 spot is currently ranks at? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | BenRWoodard0 -
Gifts.com - Multiple domain pages in SERPs
One of our big natural search competitors for gift keywords is Gifts.com. We are competing for many keywords like "teen gifts", "gifts for him", "gifts for her". For many of these, the Google SERP has multiple Gifts.com pages on the first page. I have never seen more than one of our pages (uncommongoods.com) on a SERP page. Any clue how/why Gifts.com has multiple pages in search results ? Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | znotes0 -
Title of home page is changed to domain name in SERPs
Hi, We have a unique problem, we are getting a totally different title in Google serps for a large site. When we search with domain name with space in google.com. We are getting title as domain name with space. We don't have any Open Directory listing. We don't have any cannonical issues and other pages with title as domain name. Can you please tell us what we have to do get our original title back in SERP ? Thanks, With Regards,
Algorithm Updates | | semshah1430