All pages were returning 404 for an hour. Will it impact the SERPS?
-
Hi,
Due to a bug in my website system, all the pages were returning an 404 default page for a period of 1 hour. Can this event impact the SERPs of this site? (the site is heavily visited, more than 500k users coming from google every day, so I assume google crawls my pages every moment)
-
If it was just an hour I don't think you have anything to worry about. In the future you may want to look into serving a 500 code instead when the site goes down.
-
Hi,
The GWT crawl errors section is now showling lots of my pages that were affected with the 404 error code. But these pages (most of them) are still in the serps. It seems their position were not affected.
-
Beyond the crawl... if a user is searching via key term to your site and the user gets a an error, that can certainly have an impact. You mentioned 500K Google search users could be impacted, so I would not be surprised if you don't notice a bounce. Moving forward, you may want to consider a Content Distribution Network service. If your main site goes down, the cached site can still be accessed by users. With the amount of traffic you mentioned, you'll need to do some research on this, but it may be a way to mitigate this risk in the future. Best of luck.
-
Dear Lucas,
it all depends on the fact if Google/Bing visited/crawled your website in that specific hour. If your website is receiving 500K visitors each day from Google and your websites spits out 404 pages for just an hour I don't think it will impact the rankings at all.
A client website of mine receives about 20K visitors each day, same sort of problem, due to a mistake he made his homepage was shut down for 2 days, Google bot had visited 2 times but the rankings were the same and webmaster central even gave us a notice of the problem.
I think you should be just fine.
What if the website of microsoft went offline due to a server error, electric pulse or something like that, i don't think that will impact their rankings at all.
just my 2 cents on the matter
Regards
Jarno
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
-
Viewing search results for 'When searching in google we find our site in the first position but when some others search it is seen on the second page 1 st position why is this happening?'
Viewing search results for 'When searching in google we find our site in the first position but when some others search it is seen on the second page 1 st position why is this happening?'
Search Behavior | | Alyaauditors0 -
Decent Bounce Rate but extremely low visit duration and page depth?
I'm having a bit of difficulty understanding the Bounce Rate, Visit Duration, and Page Depth metrics in Google Analytics. GA is reporting that my site's bounce rate is pretty decent - currently 36%. Yet when I drill down into audience behavior engagement, I am seeing that the vast majority of visit durations are 0-10 seconds, and the page depth is only 1 for a majority of visitors. If this were the case, wouldn't my bounce rate be higher?
Search Behavior | | JPS890 -
Creation of Landing Pages. Subdomain or something else?
Hi, I have an issue deciding how my landing pages should be like and I would like to ask for your help. Currently my landing pages are configured and presented like this: http://www.example.com/fra/Landing75.php?t_src=example&t=AFF&t_cre=keyboard-price&t_trm=160o600&B=1496&A=371&TargetURL= I would like to know if making a subdomain landing page is advised, maybe something like this: http://LandingPage.example.com/Landing75.php?t_src=example&t=AFF&t_cre=keyboard-price&t_trm=160o600&B=1496&A=371&TargetURL= Or if you suggest doing something else with my landing pages - I would like to know that as well. p.s. - How I tell the webmasters (my affiliates) to make a clickable button that won't be a direct link to my landing page but will be some form of non-visible redirect? Thanks in advance 🙂
Search Behavior | | JonsonSwartz0 -
404 errors
I am seeing alot of 404 erros recently but all seem to be pages like http://www.finalduties.co.uk/2011/06/21/legal-services-board-to-investigate-will-writers/feed/ (FEED) at the end of the URL also http://www.finalduties.co.uk/2011/06/23/rules-are-complex-when-it-comes-to-dying-intestate/?wpmp_switcher=desktop ( I know this wpmp_switcher is from a mobile ready plugin we used a while back which has since been removed after duplicating many pages. also ?wpmp_switcher=desktop is in my robots txt file to help block the robots from crawling these pages and displaying 404's but its still happening, Ihave 700+ 404 errors most ending in feed /tag and ?wpmp_switcher=desktop Any Ideas I know that 404's aren't that bad but seeing so many this morning I need to figure out why these are coming up all of a sudden. We have been getting these since our site was accidently taken down a while back, trying to figure out why we have lost so many rankings. we seem to have SERPS like YOYO's from 1 day to the next one keyword goes up but 150 and then next day drops same the next day???any ideas? Seems SEO posr penguin is one big contadiction, some seo experts give you one bit of advice another gives you another very confsuing. Thanks Elissa 🙂
Search Behavior | | Chris__Chris0 -
Forced Page Views and Search Engines?
I have a website that was built for the primary purpose of showing HTML 5 capabilities. With this, we have to create forced page views within analytics in order to receive any data about consumer behavior on the site. Are search engines viewing these forced page views as actual webpages? Does it even effect SEO efforts?
Search Behavior | | HughesDigital0 -
New EU Laws governing cookies; will Google Analytics still be usable after May 25th?
Hi, first time I've posted a question, New EU Laws governing cookies; will Google Analytics still be usable after May 25th? - apologies in advance if its already been covered, but I couldn't find any answers when I searched - google search showed someone else ask the question already, but no straight answers were given:- From May 25th the Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive will come in to force which prohibits the use of cookies without informed, prior consent from web users. I've been trying to research to see whether or not this will affect Google Analytics.The Directive seems to be designed to prevent behavioural tracking, rather than web stats, but after reading the directive (with no law experience) I'm fairly confused by what will be prohibited. If anyone has any thoughts on the matter, I'd be very grateful! 🙂
Search Behavior | | bendyman1 -
Why are my SERPs fluctuating 60+/- on a weekly basis?
I have a blog that's gone from not indexed, to indexed and ranked around 85 on 3 target key phrases. With a bit of SEO the blog jumped to around 11th on those 3 key phases in a week or so. Now, the following week, it has bombed back to 76th. Why the dramatic fluctuations?
Search Behavior | | ksracer0