301 or a 404

[nvs.nim]

Just had a discussion with a collegue about a page on our own website. We have some cases which are outdated. These pages receive some visitors but they arrive there when they search for the clients brand name, so for us they are irelevant.

What's the best way to handle these kind of pages? Is a 301-redirect to the showcase overview the way to go or do we make it a 404 and include the showcase overview in this 404?

[KeriMorgret]

There's also a blog post about how to handle expired content at http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-should-you-handle-expired-content

[nvs.nim]

I was thinking the same... going for a 301 even if the relevancy isn't 100% correct...

[Cornel_Ilea]

Hi,

301: Permanent Redirect, (Response to the crawler)

404: Not found (Response to the user)

Here is a nice Response codes article  http://www.seomoz.org/blog/response-codes-explained-with-pictures

In theory 404 is a safety net for your website when: you delete a page (you shouldn't :), a user types in a incorrect URL ... etc and you don't want the server to display the ugly 404 error message to the client. A lot of 404s to me it shows that the webmaster is not keeping a close eye to his links.

Although 301 redirecting a page that is not relevant anymore is not 100% accurate it's the best solution because:

• you keep the links juice

• your showcase page is the most relevant page on the website.

• you don't lose any direct visits.

Cornel

[Marcus_Miller]

Hmmm, these visits don't matter so maybe noindex the page first and then when it drops out just remove it. Then add a 301 to the showcase so that if anyone has it bookmarked for any reason or has linked to it they are not thrown a 404.

Really, it's not a big deal so just do whichever you think works best for the business.