Can 404 Errors Be Affecting Rankings

[TheOceanAgency]

I have a client that we recently (3 months ago) designed, developed, and launch a new site at a "new" domain.  We set up redirects from the old domain to the new domain and kept an eye on Google Webmaster Tools to make sure the redirects were working properly. Everything was going great, we maintained and improved the rankings for the first 2 months or so.

In late January, I started noticing a great deal of 404 errors in Webmaster Tools for URLs from the new site.  None of these URLs were actually on the current site so I asked my client if he had previously used to domain.  It just so happens that he used the domain a while back and none of the URLs were ever redirected or removed from the index.  I've been setting up redirects for all of the 404s appearing in Webmaster tools but we took a pretty decent hit in rankings for February.  Could those errors (72 in total) been partially if not completely responsible for the hit in rankings?  All other factors have been constant so that lead me to believe these errors were the culprits.

[eyepaq]

72 errors in my opinion is very low. If no links from within the site then you should not worry about it.

The issue with the traffic drops lies elsewhere.

[TheOceanAgency]

The site has about 30 pages in total so it's definitely on the smaller side.

We haven't set up a custom 404 yet but it's definitely on my To Do List!

[TheOceanAgency]

-There was not a significant drop off in traffic month over month

-We don't have any links on the current site that link to the 404 pages.

[BenRush]

I doubt it  - 72 errors is not a lot in my opinion.I guess its relative vs. the overall size of the site in question though and the number of total pages that makes it up. If I had a site of any great size that only had 72 404 errors I would be very happy.

Does the new site have a custom 404 page? sometimes its not even worth 301 redirecting those URLs (i.e., if there isn't a natural fit for the old page on the new site or if there is no real link equity built up against those legacy URLs). A custom 404 will allow you to remove those old legacy URLs from the search index and still provide an improved route into fresh content for the search bots in the meantime.

Ultimately though I think you probably need to look deeper into the ranking drops than the 404 errors.

Best of luck with it.

Ben

[eyepaq]

A few questions:

• did the traffic dropped suddenly or it was progressively going down ?

• if it was sudden, in what day it happen ?

• 404 do affect ranking but mainly if those 404 pages are linked from pages within the site and since it's bad for UX it also affects rankings. Are there any pages that return 404 linked from the current site (are there any live pages with links to those 404 pages ?) I know you said it's a new site and the 404 are from the old site but are there any old pages that are still online ?

[CaseyKluver]

Its hard to say if that alone is causing your ranking drop (72 is alot!), but Google certainly isnt going to reward you for having an abundance of 404 pages on your site. Thats just like telling them "I dont care about my pages or website" - There is an error on your website and its not fixed.

I would say the best thing to do at this point is to keep on 301'ing them or rebuilding content on those pages if possible and see what happens.

There are many blog posts on this subject, I would list them all here but it seems Google has most of them on page 1.