Soft 404's on a 301 Redirect...Why?
-
So we launched a site about a month ago. Our old site had an extensive library of health content that went away with the relaunch. We redirected this entire section of the site to the new education materials, but we've yet to see this reflected in the index or in GWT. In fact, we're getting close to 500 soft 404's in GWT. Our development team confirmed for me that the 301 redirect is configured correctly.
Is it just a waiting game at this point or is there something I might be missing?
Any help is appreciated. Thanks!
-
Mememax, thank you. I did not know this.
Have you tried the Custom 404 Widget?
-
Yes that happened to me a couple of years ago too.
If you're redirecting a lot of different content to the exact same generic page (like a section/category homepage) google will consider that the page is like a container, not the location where that exact content was moved. A clear signal for them would be that they can't find any portion of the old content.
Here you can read some guidance from google regarding returning 404s. It seems that mask 404 witha 301 is not the way to go anymore, just limit that to pages with backlinks pointing there, because if not you can just return 404 and delete those pages from google index (you don't want google to waste your crawl budget on those pages).
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
-
I'm struggling to understand (and fix) why I'm getting a 404 error. The URL includes this "%5Bnull%20id=43484%5D" but I cannot find that anywhere in the referring URL. Does anyone know why please? Thanks
Can you help with how to fix this 404 error please? It appears that I have a redirect from one page to the other, although the referring page URL works, but it appears to be linking to another URL with this code at the end of the the URL - %5Bnull%20id=43484%5D that I'm struggling to find and fix. Thanks
Technical SEO | | Nichole.wynter20200 -
How to use Google search console's 'Name change' tool?
Hi There, I'm having trouble performing a 'Name change' for a new website (rebrand and domain change) in Google Search console. Because the 301 redirects are in place (a requirement of the name change tool), Google can no longer verify the site, which means I can't complete the name change? To me, step two (301 redirect) conflicts with step there (site verification) - or is there a way to perform a 301 redirect and have the tool verify the old site? Any pointers in the right direction would be much appreciated. Cheers Ben
Technical SEO | | cmscss0 -
301 redirects for all urls - legal dispute
The website in question is a very high traffic website with substantial credibility in it's subject matter (sorry, can't share more details) that delivers an overwhelming majority of traffic from SEO, much of which is new visitors. A legal dispute has resulted in both parties agreeing to forward a percentage of the total URLs to alternative websites (only 1 website for each party). All URLs for the domain will be forwarded elsewhere. It does not make sense to me that the "sum of the parts" will be as strong once the redirects are implemented but I am looking for feedback. It is fair to say that the alternative domains of each party are no where near as strong as the domain being "parted out." Will the SEO juice be distributed to each domain in full? Will both parties lose out substantially? Feel free to ask for clarifications and I'll do the best I can given the legal parameters. Thanks.
Technical SEO | | ReachMaineAgency0 -
HTacess 301 redirect with special characters
Hello moz community ! I would to make a special 301 redirection through my htaccess file. I am a total noob concerning regexp and 301 redirection. I would like to redirect(301) this url : http://www.legipermis.com/stages-points/">http://www.legipermis.com/stages-points/</a></p>; yes yes it's in the index of google, this strange url includes the last ; to http://www.legipermis.com/stages-points/ I have already include a canonical tag by security, i would like to remove url with a 301 redirection and by remove this url through GWT (but the removal tool can't "eat' this kind of URL) Please consider the fact that i am not an expert about 301 redirections and regexps. No 301 redirect generator works properly for such a strange URL (which triggers content duplication corrected anyway with canonical tag). Thanks for your help.
Technical SEO | | LegiPermis0 -
Migration to New Domain - 301 Redirect Questions
My client is migrating their site to a new domain. I just did a big redesign, including URL structure change, and 301s from old URLs to new URLs. Now they want a new name, so we're moving forward with a new domain name. However, we're going to keep the site on the current domain while we ease customers into the new name. During that time, I'm going to be building links to the new domain name and 301 Redirecting that new one to the current domain name. Then, once we migrate the site to the new domain name, I'm then going to redirect the current domain name to the new domain name. So, my question(s) is/are: Is the above process the best way to use 301 redirects to to build links to the new domain while we transition everything? Should I (or can I) do 3 redirects from the oldest URLs, to the current URLs then to the new URLs? General question... I can't seem to find this anywhere online, but what is the best practice for what order URLs should be in in the htaccess file? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Kenny-King0 -
Where is the 301 redirect?
Hi, in the last week I take an issue for 301 permanent redirect for a subfolder in the main website! In that folder i have a index.php file for a google map fullscreen edition and the only link who connects the wordpress website with the subfolder is only a direct link! Is that an error of seomoz app or something else? Thanks 1.jpg
Technical SEO | | petrospan0 -
How do I fix a 301 Redirect Loop?
Saturday I waas doing some correcting of some duplicate titles, including nofollowing tags, etc. (my main problem was duplicate titles due to tags and categories being indexed). Now this morning I see that one of my pages refuses to load, citing a 301 redirect loop. http://www.incredibleinfant.com/feeding/switching-baby-formula/ Originally, the page was posted under the wrong category. http://www.incredibleinfant.com/uncategorized/switching-baby-formula I resaved it under the correct category (feeding) and now it won't load. Can someone help me figure out how to correct this mess? Thanks so much Heather
Technical SEO | | Gotmoxie0 -
301 redirect from domain to home.aspx
We have been asked to look at a website and have found a 301 redirect from the domain www.domain.com to www.domain.com/home.aspx. Why would someone do this, this way round? We can't think of a good reason and are wondering if we have overlooked something? Thanks for your help.
Technical SEO | | travelinnovations0