How to proceed on this 404 situation
-
Hi folks,
I have a website (www.mysite.com) where I can't host a 404 page inside the subdomain www because a CMS issue.
In order to provide a 404 page, I can create a subdomain like “404.mysite.com” that returns 404 and then if I find that a page does not exist I can redirect it to 404.mysite.com.
My question is: should I redirect as 301 or 302? Does it have any difference?
-
Fabio,
If you are taking the time to redirect to a 404 page, I would suggest using a 301 to a page that is active. Instead of wasting the link juice on a 404 page, you can pass it on to something that is active and useful to your visitor (even a "help" page)
The key here is to find a new page that is at least somewhat connected to what was on the dead link's URL.
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
-
Webmaster message - increase in 404 pages
I've had a message in webmaster tools: Increase in “404” pages on http://www.ethicaredental.co.uk/There are 1000 pages in the crawl error list. But all of them direct to t a 404 page, i.e http://www.ethicaredental.co.uk/search?searchword=toothwhich, which as far as I can tell has all the necessary features of a good 404 page (clear message saying the page doesnt exist anymore, navigation, and business details.The webiste was built in Joomla previous to a re-design in Wordpress. Is this a Joomla issue? How can I satisfy webmaster and Googles crawl to understand these are decent 404 pages? Or dop all 1000 pages need to be 301 redirected.??Any thoughts appreciated
Technical SEO | | dentaldesign1 -
Sitemap issue? 404's & 500's are regenerating?
I am using the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast to generate a sitemap on http://www.atozqualityfencing.com. Last month, I had an associate create redirects for over 200 404 errors. She did this via the .htaccess file. Today, there are the same amount of 404s along with a number of 503 errors. This new Wordpress website was constructed on a subdirectory and made live by simply entering some code into the .htaccess file in order to direct browsers to the content we wanted live. In other words, the content actually resides in a subdirectory titled "newsite" but is shown live on the main url. Can you tell me why we are having these 404 & 503 errors? I have no idea where to begin looking.
Technical SEO | | JanetJ0 -
404 error due to a page which requires a login
what do I do with 404 errors reported in webmaster tools that are actually URLs where users are clicking a link that requires them to log in (so they get sent to a login page). what's the best practice in these cases? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | joshuakrafchin0 -
301 redirect all 404 pages
Hi I would like to have a second opinion on this. I am working on an ecommerce website that they 301 redirect all 404 pages (including the URLs entered incorrectly) to the “All categories page”. Will this have any negative SEO impact?
Technical SEO | | iThinkMedia0 -
If I get a natural link for a great site and I have my keyword with anchor text in this link, how should I proceed?
If I get a natural link for a great site and I have my keyword with anchor text in this link, how should I proceed? I need to contact the site and ask to remove the link or request the removal of the anchor text and leave only the site URL? Or yet do not I need to worry about this issue?
Technical SEO | | soulmktpro0 -
404 page for webshop vs 302 redirect
Hi everybody Im the owner of a webshop and we have implemented that products that are not instock are disabled from the shop. My problem is that i have a lot of 404 pages, that right now get redirected to the front page, when the item are not instock. This is because it would hurt the conversion rate if they got a standard 404 page. Customers dont know what a 404 and would click back and choose another competitor. Its really hard to find out what are the best solution and what are not a downrank at google. This has been running like this for 2 years and cant see any negative in the solution regarding seo and so on, What are your thoughts? Christian Hansen Denmark
Technical SEO | | noerdar0 -
Mass 404 pages
Hi Guys, If I were to have to take down the majority of my site, taking all content and links pointing to that content down. How would the search engines react? Would I get a penalty for the majority of the site all of the sudden missing? My only concern is the loss of traffic on the remanding pages. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | DPASeo0 -
How to find links to 404 pages?
I know that I used to be able to do this, but I can't seem to remember. One of the sites I am working on has had a lot of pages moving around lately. I am sure some links got lost in the fray that I would like to recover, what is the easiest way to see links going to a domain that are pointing to 404 pages?
Technical SEO | | MarloSchneider0