Duplicate Pate Content - 404's or 301's?
-
I deleted about 100 pages of stale content 6 months ago and they are currently returning 404's. The crawl diagnostics have pointed out 77 duplicate pages because of this. Should I redirect these as 301's to get rid of the error or keep them as 404's? Most of the pages still have some page authority but I don't want to get penalized. Just looking for the best solution. Thanks!
-
Hi Braunna,
It sounds like you deleted pages, then remade them. It is great you're keeping up with the freshness of the site but for search engine purposes you should have simply updated the current page with fresh content, or remade the page then 301'd the old page to the new page.
In general you should try to avoid deleting pages or remaking the same page with a new url unless there is a reason greater than content driving the decision. Such as a new CMS (content management system, Joomla, WP, OSC etc..), switching server side scripting (php to asp), or overhauling navigation and architecture.
If there was a case of a the page simply being completely useless and you are removing it completely then 404 would be correct. If you are seeing any duplicate content issues in this case it is likely because the search engines have not de-indexed the old page or it is still in their cache. Google can help you with removing cached versions and forcing de-indexing.
I hope that hit the correct answer for you.
Happy New Year
-
I do not believe 404 pages will result in a penalty, and eventually they will be deindexed by search engines.
Like SanketPatel said, 301 redirects are best used on a one to one basis, where the old page is related to the page it is getting 301 redirected to.
If some of those pages have great links point to them, I would first make an effort to get those links changed to direct to the existing URLs. If that does not work, it might be worth considering creating a relevant page for a page with high page authority to be 301 redirected to.
-
Hi Braunna,
Do you have related pages for those 100 pages ? 301 redirect is the best solution in your case only when you redirect those pages to most relevant pages so that some authority get transfer to those pages.
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
-
Landing page redirect along with complete content
Hi Moz community, We have a page with "keyword" we are targeting in slug like website.com/keyword/. This page doesn't have much back-links or visits like homepage. So we decided to redirect homepage to /keyword page along with complete content. Will this going to hurt? Only change anybody can notice is URL. Are there any risks involved. I think this is the best way to highlight the page we been thinking about. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Will Russia's New Data Protection Law Impact SEOs and SMBs Outside of Russia?
We've all seen the news recently that Google will be closing its engineering offices in Russia due to new data protection laws coming into place in January 2015. The same law has also led to Adobe pulling out of Russia earlier in the year. I was wondering how you think this will impact SEOers and small/medium businesses that market _to _Russia, but are based outside of the country? Personal data has been defined in the new legislation as: Personal data means any information directly or indirectly related to any identified or potentially identifiable person. It includes, among other things, first name and family name, date and place of birth, address, information about family status, education, profession, income Source For those businesses which don't process personal data (affiliates etc), will there be any foreseeable impact? On the flipside, are there any benefits here for affiliate businesses inside of Russia? I'm using affiliates as an example to get the ball rolling, but I'm sure there's numerous more. Personally, I'd be interested to hear if you think this may impact corporate websites which don't process personal data, but operate outside of Russia.
Algorithm Updates | | ecommercebc0 -
How Do I Optimize with Google's Video Search?
Hi everyone, I am looking here https://developers.google.com/webmasters/videosearch/schema and I don't fully understand. Could someone please explain, step by step, what I have to do to optimize for Google video search? I.e. Step 1 do this Step 2 do this. I don't fully understand Thank you!
Algorithm Updates | | jhinchcliffe0 -
Guides to determine if a client's website has been penalized?
Has anyone come across any great guides to pair with client data to help you determine if their website has been penalized? I'm also not talking about an obvious drop in traffic/rankings, but I want to know if there's a guide out there for detecting the subtleties that may be found in a client's website data. One that also helps you take into account all the different variables that may not be related to the engines. Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | EEE30 -
Moving content in to tabs
Hi, I'm kind of an SEO noobie, so please bare with me 🙂 On one of the sites I'm working on I got a request to move large blocks of content, just placed on the page currently, in to tabs. This makes sense. We tried it and it makes navigating through the information much easier for visitors. My question is: Will Google consider this as hiding information? It's not loaded dynamically. It's all their when the page is loaded, in the source, but not displayed until the visitor clicks the tab. Will this cause SEO issues? Thank you!
Algorithm Updates | | eladlachmi0 -
To use the same content just changing the keywords could be seen as duplicate content?
I want to offer the same service or product in many different cities, so instead of creating a new content for each city what I want to do it to copy the content already created for the product and service of a city and then change the name of the city and create a new url inside my website for each city. for example let say I sell handmade rings in the USA, but I want o target each principal city in the USA, so I have want to have a unque url for ecxh city so for example for Miami I want to have www.mydomain.com/handmade-rings-miami and for LA the url would be www.mydomain.com/handmade-rings-la Can I have the same content talking about the handmade rings and just change the keywords and key phrases? or this will count as a duplicate content? content: TITLE: Miami Handmade Rings URL :www.mydomain.com/handmade-rings-miami Shop Now handmade rings in Miami in our online store and get a special discount in Miami purchases over $50 and also get free shipping on Miami Local address... See what our Miami handmade rings clients say about our products.... TITLE: LA Handmade Rings URL: www.mydomain.com/handmade-rings-la Shop Now handmade rings in LA in our online store and get a special discount in LA purchases over $50 and also get free shipping on LA Local address... See what our LA handmade rings clients say about our products.... There are more than 100 location in the country I want to do this, so that is why I want to copy paste and replace.. Thanks in advance, David Orion
Algorithm Updates | | sellonline1230 -
No-follow tags on links in the footer...do it or don't do it?
With some of the great reports SEOMoz has provided I've been able to start to take the correct steps towards fixing crawl issues, on-page issues, etc. One of my websites allows a customer to drill down to their specific state and then their city to apply for an auto loan. The SEOMoz reports told me I had too many links on these pages specifically. One of my ways to remedy this would be to add "no-follow" tags on the links in the footer as well as the links to the cities. Am I steering myself in the right/wrong direction? Should I be approaching this problem from a different perspective? Any help is greatly appreciated!
Algorithm Updates | | fergseo0 -
Website moving up and down SERPs alongside others in 'blocks'.
I have noticed that since the so-called 'Panda' updates my website has been moving up and down the Google SERPs in a kind of 'block' alongside other unrelated websites for certain keyword phrases. Whenever there is upwards or downwards movement it happens in tandem with the other websites in those blocks and it is very frustrating. Why is this and has anybody experienced anything similar? The website - http://bit.ly/jIFHpm The search engine - Google, US The keyword phrase - First phrase of website meta title Sorry for being so cryptic I just don't like openly giving out certain information - think it's a bad hangover from the Google Webmaster help forums where everything you post is indexed for Joe nobody to read at his leisure. If anybody would like to mention anything else related to any on or off-page factors on the website then your time would be much appreciated. One thing I am a bit concerned about, for example, is the repition of 'monitors' on the 'monitor shop' dropdown on the top navigation menu and also the sidebar. This would put a localised high density of the keyword in these navigation areas and I am slightly concerned about that. I have no malicious intent and it is appropriate for the user but perhaps the manufacturer names alone would suffice? Thanks in advance.
Algorithm Updates | | teebus0