Handling Deleted Pages

[PatrickGriffith]

The backstory: My site has a fantasy sportsbook where users can place "bets" on pretty much anything.  Each game has a unique matchup page, where the odds are displayed and any conversation about the game takes place. Example here.

About 95% of the games are automatically graded, but I have to manually grade the rest.  Therefore, as soon as every game starts I check to see if any users have made a pick on it, and if not I delete it because it reduces my workload.

The problem: About 15% of my search-driven traffic is queries for games that no longer exist, which makes sense because nobody bets on the super obscure games and these games are very easy to rank for.  I am currently redirecting them to my 404 page but I'm worried that all of these hits are hurting my reputation with the big G.

Would it be better to noindex all of these pages at first and take the noindex away as soon as I'm positive that the game will stay?

[PatrickGriffith]

Thanks!  You've confirmed my fears.  The first link redirects to the 404 page because that game was deleted - thus demonstrating the severity of the problem.

Here is a link for a game that wasn't deleted.  I'm torn on possibly nofollowing all of these pages unless a conversation has been started like here, because they don't contain much content.  In fact, I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of somebody searching for a game result, and find that I may be more likely to bounce from a matchup page than a 404 page.  Oh, the decisions we face!

[ShaMenz]

Hi Patrick,

Your first link is going to your custom 404 as well, but I get what you are describing, so yes, if it were me I would make sure that the pages are noindexed (using the noindex meta tag, which is the most reliable method) by default when they are created. When you decide that a page is to remain on the site permanently you can then remove the noindex tag and make it visible.

Your custom 404 has everything you need to make sure there is a good chance the visitor will click through to another page in your site, so you are doing all you can to make sure that those people following a broken link don't bounce right back to the search engine.

I would say your logic is correct in that the only way to further improve the odds is to reduce the potential for broken links before they happen.

Hope that helps,

Sha