Do I need to redirect soft 404s that I got from Google Webmaster Tools?
-
Hi guys,
I got almost 1000+ soft 404s from GWT. All of the soft 404s produce 200 HTTP status code but the URLs are something like the following:
http://www.example.com/search/house-for-rent
(query used: house for rent)
http://www.example.com/search/-----------rent
(query used:-------rent)
There are no listings that match these queries and there is an advanced search that is visible in these pages.
Here are my questions:
1. Do I need to redirect each page to its appropriate landing page?
2. Do I need to add user sitemap or a list of URLs where they can search for other properties?
Any suggestions would help.
-
Thanks guys for your inputs. By the way, this issue is already resolved last year. Thanks again!
-
It depends what you want to achieve. If the 404s are pages which no longer exist than it will be the fastest to use the GWMT removal tool to remove the page pattern and also add a noindex in robots.txt. In addition obviously returning a 404.
The soft 404 is a case where content is not found but HTTP-status 200 is returned - this needs to change if you currently serve non-existing pages.
We generally do the following:
- Content which we know does not exist anymore (i.e. a deleted product page or a deleted product category) is served with a SC_GONE (410) and we provide cross-selling information (i.e. display products from related categories). This works great and we have seen a boost in indexed content.
- URLs which don't exist will go through a standard 404 - this is intentional as our monitoring will pick this up. If it is a legitimate 404 put of SEO value, we will do a redirect if it makes sense, or just let Google drop it over time (takes sometimes up to 4 weeks)
You can have multiple versions of 404 pages, but this would need to be coded out - i.e. in your application server you would define 404page which then programmatically would display content depending on what you want to do.
-
I know I am way late to the party, but MagicDude4Eva, have you had success just putting a noindex header on the soft 404 pages?
That sounds like the easiest way to deal with this problem, if it works, especially since a lot of sites use dynamic URLs for product search that you don't want to de-index.
Can you have multiple 404 pages? Otherwise redirecting an empty search results page to your 404 page could be quite confusing..
-
Hi mate,
I already added the following syntax to my website's robots.txt:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /search/
I have checked the dynamic pages or URLs produced by search box (ex.http://www.domain.com/search/jhjehfjehfefe) but they are still showing in Google.com and there's still 1000+ soft 404s in my Google webmaster tools account.
I appreciate your help.
Thanks man!
-
I think if it is done carefully it adds quite a lot of value. A proper site taxonomy is obviously always better and more predictable.
-
I would never index or let google crawl search pages - very dangerous ground.
-
I would do the following:
- For valid searches returned create a proper canoncial URL (and then decide if you want to do a index,follow or a noindex,follow on the result pages). You might not necessarily want to index search results, but rather a structure of items/pages on your site.
- I would generally not index search results (rather have your pages being crawled through category structures, sitemaps and RSS feeds)
- It does sound though that the way you implemented the search is wrong - it should not result in a soft 404 - it could be as easy as making the canonical for your search just "/search" (without any search terms) and if no results are found display options to the user for search refinements
The only time I have seen soft 404s with us is in cases where we removed product pages and then displayed a generic "product not available" page with some upselling options. In this case we set a status of 410 (GONE) which resolved the soft 404 issue.
The advantage of the 410 is that your application makes the decision that a page is gone, whereas a 404 could really be just a wrong linked URL.
-
Yes Customize 404 whenever your database don't have have search results for user query then you can redirect them to that page.
Have you considered of blocking "search" results directory in Robots.txt because those pages are dynamic, they are not actually physical page so its better you block them.
-
What do you mean by default page? Is it a customized 404 page?
Thanks a lot man! I appreciate it.
-
Hi,
As per your URL, I think best solution is to block "search" directory in Robots.txt, then Google will not able to to access those pages so no error in GWT. OR you can also create default page for query which don't have any result in database.
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
-
With Google's new Speed Update, what does that mean for AMP pages?
Hey everyone! I wanted to get the other Mozzers opinions on this. With Google announcing a new Speed Update that will affect mobile rankings, I wanted to ask: How will AMP pages play into this? Let me know what you think!
Web Design | | TaylorRHawkins
Thanks!2 -
Could a redirecting a homepage mess with seo? if so is there any documentation you could point me too? Thanks!
I have a global page for our site but the global site has the exact same content as the main navigation personal page. If I redirect /index to /personal how much seo damage are we doing?
Web Design | | Miguelquirarte0 -
Increase in Soft 404s due to Custom 404 page?
Hi all, We have noticed recently soft 404s are increasing day by day; which are landing on our custom 404 page created a month back. Other 404 pages are NOT landing on custom 404 page. Does this custom 404 page hurting us by causing an increase in soft 404s? Our CMS is WordPress. Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
Google HTML, CSS and javascript styleguides ?
Who's following the Google style guides especially in HTML, CSS and javascript? What are the benefits of following the style guides? I am thinking of sending the style guides to our web development team before we launch our new site but I think there might be some conflicts. I'm an SEO and not programmer or web developer and I'm sure there are some "rules" that these web dev guys should follow and break as well. Thanks in advance! 🙂
Web Design | | esiow20130 -
Responsive design and Google analytics mobile tracking codes?
Hi all, We are currently rebuilding a site using responsive design, however i have just had a thought. On another site where we have a mobile site under a sub-directory we utilise mobile tracking codes as we found that this was far more accurate for recording visits. On a responsive design site evidently all pages, desktop and mobile, will be under the same URL, yet the content will adjust to the screen size of the device. Should we also change the tracking code to be mobile code on the lower resolutions or would the same code be sufficient?
Web Design | | Sarbs0 -
For a web design firm, should i make a google plus local page or company page?
I have a web design firm located in India, At this moment we are focusing on local clients as the current competition in local market is very low. But in few months we will shift our focus to outsourcing. So I wanted to know if we should make a google plus local page and connect it with my google places account and website or should I make a google plus business page and connect it to website? Our major focus is on seo. Thanks
Web Design | | hard0 -
Does Google take email server IP blacklists into account?
This is just a hypothetical, but would Google use information from email server blacklists to determine the quality of a website? The reason is that we're planning to code in an e-mail queuing system for our next CMS, and we would put SPF and DKIM in place. We wouldn't be sending any bulk e-mails (we use Constant Contact for this), but we might be sending personalised follow up e-mails, unpaid order emails and that sort of thing. There's no reason to think we'll be blacklisted, but from experience I know that these email blacklist directories quite often give false positives when an e-mail server is incorrectly configured. So the risk is that we might get blacklisted by mistake when we start using this new feature. Would Google take this into account as part of the algorithm? And if so, would the damage be permanent? (I.e. does getting removed from the blacklist mean Google will stop thinking we're a low quality / spammy site)
Web Design | | OptiBacUK0 -
Is it necessary to redirect every Error page (404 or 500) found?
If I have Hundreds of pages with 404 and 500 erros should set up 301 redirects for all of them? Some of the pages have external links, some don't.
Web Design | | jmansd0