What is the best way to handle links that lead to a 404 page
-
Hi Team Moz,
I am working through a site cutover with an entirely new URL structure and have a bunch of pages that could not, would not or just plain don't redirect to new pages.
Steps I have taken:
-
Multiple new sitemaps submitted with new URLs and the indexing looks solid
-
used webmasters to remove urls with natural result listings that did not redirect and produce urls
-
Completely built out new ppc campaigns with new URL structures
-
contacted few major link partners
Now here is my question:
I have a pages that produce 404s that are linked to in forums, slick deals and stuff like that which will not be redirected. Is disavowing these links the correct thing to do?
-
-
Hi,
Definitely don't use disavow unless you think that the links are poor quality and could harm your site, or are actively harming it right now. That is what disavow is for, not for removing your 404 pages.
There is no harm waiting for Google to remove the 404 pages on its own, especially if you have used its URL removal tool as well. If there are any good links in the backlink profile of the 404ing pages, do attempt to contact the webmaster and have them changed - most people are more than happy to do this.
-
If the links are good ones, 301 redirect to a good page, you don't have to have a blank page at that url.
if they are bad links just leave them. if that are 404'ing then they can do you no harm.
The only 404's that can do you harm are ones from your own internal links, because it means you have link juice leaks. fix any if you have them
-
Edit the link backs you were getting to the 404 pages and point it to the new pages. Another option is to host a blank page (with header and footer) on the 404 page and 301 redirect it to the new pages. the page rank/ link profile will get passed to the new page.
-
Well, the correct / best thing to do would be to try and get all of those links edited and pointed to live pages. That said, if you don't know who posted the links or have no way to get in touch with those who do, then it can be very awkward to achieve - still, link reclamation can be a great way to help with new links, seeing as they are already pointing to your site.
-Andy
-
If you feel the links are harming you or your SEO efforts in anyway, you can go ahead and disavow them. However, the disavow link does not remove the links so it does not help with 404 errors, but will ignore them when it comes to your rankings.
Hope this helps!
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
-
What do you do with product pages that are no longer used ? Delete/redirect to category/404 etc
We have a store with thousands of active items and thousands of sold items. Each product is unique so only one of each. All products are pinned and pushed online ... and then they sell and we have a product page for a sold item. All products are keyword researched and often can rank well for longtail keywords Would you :- 1. delete the page and let it 404 (we will get thousands) 2. See if the page has a decent PA, incoming links and traffic and if so redirect to a RELEVANT category page ? ~(again there will be thousands) 3. Re use the page for another product - for example a sold ruby ring gets replaces with ta new ruby ring and we use that same page /url for the new item. Gemma
Technical SEO | | acsilver0 -
Bigcommerce only allows us to have https for our store only, not the other pages on our site, so we have a mix of https and http, how is this hurting us and what's the best way to fix?
So we aren't interested in paying a thousand dollars a month just to have https when we feel it's the only selling point of that package, so we have https for our store and the rest of the site blogs and all are http. I'm wondering if this would count as duplicate content or give us some other unforeseen penalty due to the half way approach of https being implemented. If this is hurting us, what would you recommend as a solution?
Technical SEO | | Deacyde0 -
Spam pages / content created due to hack. 404 cleanup.
A hosting company's server was hacked and one of our customer's sites was injected with 7,000+ pages of fake, bogus, promotional content. Server was patched and spammy content removed from the server. Reviewing Google Webmaster's Tools we have all the hacked pages showing up as 404's and have a severe drop in impressions, rank and traffic. GWT also has 'Some manual actions apply to specific pages, sections, or links'... What do you recommend for: Cleaning up 404's to spammy pages? (I am not sure redirect to home page is a right thing to do - is it?) Cleaning up links that were created off site to the spam pages Getting rank bank // what would you do in addition to the above?
Technical SEO | | GreenStone0 -
Best way to handle with a Multiple Langue Issue
Howdy everyone! I am having trouble with deciding on how to solve a Multiple Language Issue. I went to several consultants here in Mexico, but i am not totally convinced on their solution. So i am hoping to hear excellent advice (as always) here on the SEOMOZ Forum. I have a website, (www.aceromart.com) an ecommerce site in which to sell materials for the construction industry. My main market is in Mexico, therefore the website is in Spanish. However, the export sales are increasing and some of the suppliers are from USA. I need to include the English version on my website, however i dont know how to do this. The option that they propose is to create an entirely different website with another domain. Entirely in English that links to my existing website. I did not like this at all. Mainly because i would not like to change the brand name or anything. I would like to include the English version within my website. Is it okay, if treat it as a folder withing my website. I.E www.aceromart.com/english/content? What is the best way to do this according to your experience. Best Regards, thanks for your help.
Technical SEO | | JesusD0 -
Should i redirect my lost links to my home page
Hi, as some of you maybe aware, i had a major problem last year that has caused me nothing but trouble. in short, my hosting company lost me over 10,000 pages from my site and i had to rebuild the site from stratch which is still on going. I lost thousands of links to my site and i have been over the past week pointing the pages not found to the sections that is best suited to them. But i am just wondering if it would harm my site if i also point some of those links to my home page. I was a page rank four before disaster happened to my site and now i am a page rank two and i want to build this up. so i am just wondering if i should point some of those good links to my home page i am redirecting the pages using 301 in my htaccess file any advice would be great
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Do you get credit for an external link that points to a page that's being blocked by robots.txt
Hi folks, No one, including me seems to actually know what happens!? To repeat: If site A links to /home.html on site B and site B blocks /home.html in Robots.txt, does site B get credit for that link? Does the link pass PageRank? Will Google still crawl through it? Does the domain get some juice, but not the page? I know there's other ways of doing this properly, but it is interesting no?
Technical SEO | | DaveSottimano0 -
Why does this page show it has 166 links in the crawll?
http://ensoplastics.com/theblog/?p=213 This is a page that shows up as having over a 100 links in the crawl, however I don't understand where those links are coming from?
Technical SEO | | ENSO0 -
Can someone break down 'page level link metrics' for me?
Sorry for the, again, basic question - can someone define page level link metrics for me?
Technical SEO | | Benj250