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
-
Best way to redirect friendly URL in direct mail ?
Hi, When we do direct mail to our customers talking about a specific product we sell we usually put a link in the letter so the customer can go directly to the product just by typing a short link, something like:
Technical SEO | | BigJoe
www.example.com/blue-widget This link will then re-direct to:
www.example.com/shop/product/brand-name-big-blue-widget-with-green-ends-200m-50diameter.php Which we are happy with at the moment but I want to check we are doing it correctly in terms of redirects, we currently re-direct it using .htaccess like:
Redirect /blue-widget http://www.example.com/shop/product/brand-name-big-blue-widget-with-green-ends-200m-50diameter.php This re-directs it as a 302 but should it be done as a 301 ? I am not sure why we did 302's to start with but I am thinking they should be 301's, I think it might have been because the URL we were redirecting from was imaginary ? Also should we use the Redirect line in the .htaccess or should we do each one with a RewriteRule ? Thanks BigJoe0 -
"One Page With Two Links To Same Page; We Counted The First Link" Is this true?
I read this to day http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-one-page-two-links-page-counted-first-link-192718 I thought to myself, yep, thats what I been reading in Moz for years ( pitty Matt could not confirm that still the case for 2014) But reading though the comments Michael Martinez of http://www.seo-theory.com/ pointed out that Mat says "...the last time I checked, was 2009, and back then -- uh, we might, for example, only have selected one of the links from a given page."
Technical SEO | | PaddyDisplays
Which would imply that is does not not mean it always the first link. Michael goes on to say "Back in 2008 when Rand WRONGLY claimed that Google was only counting the first link (I shared results of a test where it passed anchor text from TWO links on the same page)" then goes on to say " In practice the search engine sometimes skipped over links and took anchor text from a second or third link down the page." For me this is significant. I know people that have had "SEO experts" recommend that they should have a blog attached to there e-commence site and post blog posts (with no real interest for readers) with anchor text links to you landing pages. I thought that posting blog post just for anchor text link was a waste of time if you are already linking to the landing page with in a main navigation as google would see that link first. But if Michael is correct then these type of blog posts anchor text link blog posts would have value But who is' right Rand or Michael?0 -
What is the best way to stop a page being indexed?
What is the best way to stop a page being indexed? Is it to implement robots.txt at a site level with a Robots.txt file in the main directory or at a page level with the tag?
Technical SEO | | cbarron0 -
How to handle (internal) search result pages?
Hi Mozers, I'm not quite sure what the best way is to handle internal search pages. In this case it's for an ecommerce website with about 8.000+ products and search pages currently look like: example.com/search.php?search=QUERY+HERE. I'm leaning towards making them follow, noindex. Since pages like this can be easily abused for duplicate content and because I'd rather have the category pages ranked. How would you handle this?
Technical SEO | | Qon0 -
Best URL Structure for Product Pages?
I am happy with my URLs and my ecommerce site ranks well over all, but I have a question about product URL's. Specifically when the products have multiple attributes such as "color". I use a header URL in order to present the 'style' of products, www.americanmusical.com/Item--i-GIB-LPCCT-LIST and I allow each 'color' to have it's own URL so people can send or bookmark a specific item. www.americanmusical.com/Item--i-GIB-LPCCT-ANCH1 www.americanmusical.com/Item--i-GIB-LPCCT-WRCH1 I use a rel canonical to show that the header URL is the URL search engines should be indexing and to avoid duplicate content issues from having the exact same info, MP3's, PDF's, Video's accessories, etc on each specific item URL. I also have a 'noindex no follow' on the specific item URL. These header URLs rank well, but when using tools like SEOMoz, which I love, my header pages fail for using rel canonical and 'noindex no follow' I've considered only having the header URL, but I like the idea of shoppers being able to get to the specific product URL. Do I need the no index no follow? Do I even need the rel canonical? Any suggestions?
Technical SEO | | dianeb1520 -
Thoughts about stub pages - 200 & noindex ok, or 404?
With large database/template driven websites it is often possible to get a lot of pages with no content on them. What are the current thoughts regarding these pages with no content, options; Return a 200 header code with noindex meta tag Return a 404 page & header code Something else? Thanks
Technical SEO | | slingshot0 -
Best way to handle redirection for products that come in and out of inventory.
We have a large volume of products that rotate seasonally. From an SEO perspective we are looking for the best method on how to handle these issues. Currently when crawler or user encounters a URL to a product that is no longer in inventory we are looking at two things. One, the request comes in and send a 200 to a page that says ITEM NOT FOUND. Option 2, is simply send them to a 404. The product may or may not be put back into production. What is the best method to handle this?
Technical SEO | | CC_Dallas0 -
Best way to handle different views of the same page?
Say I have a page: mydomain.com/page But I also have different views: /?sort=alpha /print-version /?session_ID=2892 etc. All same content, more or less. Should the subsequent pages have ROBOTS meta tag with noindex? Should I use canonical? Both? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | ChatterBlock0