When serving a 410 for page gone, should I serve an error page?
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I'm removing a bunch of old & rubbish pages and was going to serve 410 to tell google they're gone (my understanding is it'll get them out of the index a bit quicker than a 404).
I should still serve an error page though, right? Similar to a 404. That doesn't muddy the "gone" message that I'm giving Google? There's no need to 410 and die?
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Both of these folks have it spot on and are correct in their recommendations, just remember to keep an eye on Search Console so you can verify the progress!
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Completely agree with this.
Also deploy Meta no-index (through the HTTP header / X-Robots, rather than through the HTML if that ends up being a problem... Info on both HTTP and HTML deployments here: https://developers.google.com/search/reference/robots_meta_tag)
Then you're firing both barrels of the shotgun. Telling Google not to index the pages _and _telling Google that the pages won't be coming back
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Yes, 410's will typically get out of index faster and I recommend serving an error page w/search so that the visitor knows that the site is still around.
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