404 Error to homepage
-
Is there any risk of forwarding 404 links directly to homepage. I already have 404 page but now google showing you have lots of 404 links and some of them i can't control to fix this issue. Is there any problem if i do so for SEO ?
-
try to nofollwo your login link and block your loggedin pages in your robots, so you'll almost prevent google to reach those pages. If you're able you can also noinedx your content.
-
As Tom, and webmaster central blog states 404s are a natural part of any website. They don't hurt you directly.
Redirect to home is not always a good idea, don't forget the real meaning of redirect: "a content which is permanently/temporary moved to another address.
If the content you are redirecting has just disappeared try to enhance the user experince: what is the advantage for an user looking for a product to reach your homepage? it will only raise your bounce, try to create a customized 404 which give to the users good alternatives to what thhey were looking for, like related products or the category where the product was.
-
Thanks for the brief info. I seen 404 links coming from few products and most of them are from login link. However i don't know my developer changed the login link to the new one and google crawled that old login link, now it is showing 404 links. Currently google found 235 errors
-
There shouldn't be a problem, but I'd like to ask why you feel the need to 404 them?
Google acknowledges that 404 errors are a natural part of a website that will happen from time to time. You won't be penalised for having some (I can only see it being a problem if there are 10s of thousands each day).
I'd consider performing a 301 redirect if it met one of the three following criteria:
Do you have good links passing to that page? If so, your homepage could benefit from the link "strength" these links are giving.
Are users hitting that page repeatedly? Check your landing pages in Google analytics, if you have it installed, and see how many users are trying to access that page. If there are, it would be better to serve them the homepage than a 404.
Does it severely disrupt the user journey/experience on the website? This would obviously put a user off, so returning them to the homepage would again be the better solution.
In terms of how many redirects you can do to a homepage in one go - I have done thousands before with no adverse benefit, but I wouldn't completely recommend this. If you end up wanting to redirect a thousand URLs, I would probably do them in 250 bulks over 4 weeks.
The only other problem you may occur is that if you have thousands and thousands of redirects set up in your .htaccess file, if you're running on Apache, it could potentially slow the file down, which would effect the speed of your site. But I don't think this will be an issue.
Hope this helps!
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
-
Linking back to the homepage im trying to rank - Using exact match anchor? Linking from footer?
Hello, Our site is an basically advertisements / listings website. Structure is as following <last 200="" adds=""> (homepage trying to rank) < category 1 > < category 1 > < category 1 > < category 1 > < category 1 ></last> My question - each of the categories links back within the menu back to homepage. The link text currently is last 200 adds. Can i use exact match anchor? Or should i use just last 200 ads? The issue is that one of my categorys (category 1) has already the exact match anchor im trying to rank for. So i can not use the same to link back to homepage. Im worried that google does not see any exact keyword anchor texts back to homepage hence will rank my homepage with lower strenght for that keyword . Im also worried that the category 1 page might now compete with the main homepage for this word (even tho at the moment category itself does not rank for this keyword) Can i link from footer back to homepage with an alternative keyword then to give some "context" to google more? Would this be spamming?
On-Page Optimization | | advertisingcloud0 -
Can "window.location" javascript on homepage affect seo?
Hi! I need to add a splashpage to my wordpress site. I use "window.location" javascript on the homepage to redirect on the splashpage (controlled by cookie to redirect only for the first access). Can this technique affect the SEO on homepage? Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | StudioCiteroni0 -
Dealing with Not Found errors
Hi, I have a problem with Google Webmaster, it reported that I have many errors 404 Not Found.
On-Page Optimization | | JohnHuynh
I have detected and found the links are coming from my site, I have fixed them and submit a new sitemap to google again. Then, I wait a few days, google still report errors 404 Not found same as before. I don't know why? Please help!0 -
It looks like there are several title tags on my homepage. This was done presumably to embed titles for pop up windows. This is causing an error report in DMOZ. Do the engines also veiw this negatively?
My homepage has a normal title tag, but when I look in the code I find the developer also added title tags for pop ups within the homepage code. Is this causing an issue with the search engines?
On-Page Optimization | | Furious-D0 -
404 crawl errors with all url+domain
We have 187 crawl 404 errors. All urls on web make a 404 error that this http://www.domain.com/[.....]l/www.domain.com all errors added to the url, the url domain I put an example gestoriabarcelona.com/www.gestoriabarcelona.com
On-Page Optimization | | promonet
gestoriabarcelona.com/tarifas/www.gestoriabarcelona.com
gestoriabarcelona.com/category/noticias/page/7/www.gestoriabarcelona.com
gestoriabarcelona.com/2012/08/amortizacion-de-unaconstruccion/
www.gestoriabarcelona.com
[..] I don't know where can i find to solve errors Anyone can help me? Thanks0 -
Large block of several thousand words on homepage of Ecommerce site - opinions?
I work for a local SEO company who are continually adding content to the home page of clients websites. While i do agree that it is a good idea to add content to the home page and to link to inner pages, the home page of several clients exceeds 6,000 or more words. Every month, an article based on a brand or category (which already has its own page which is optimised with an article) is added to the home page with links to inner pages. I have stressed that it is not a good idea to have so much content on the home page, and even more so that it shouldn't target all the same keywords. I have pointed out that many of the brand and category pages do not rank well for their keywords, whereas in most cases it is the home page which is ranking instead, which i have suggested this is because the home page is too well optimised for those keywords. What are your opinions on this? Are you for or against continually adding content (which already has its own designated page) to the home page of an Ecommerce website? I should also add that this content is within a drop down div box at the footer on some sites and just above the footer on other sites. The category and brand pages also have drop down divs with an article just below the header.
On-Page Optimization | | Kinsel0 -
How long after a URL starts showing a 404 does Google stop crawling?
Before hiring me to do SEO, a client re-launched their site and did not 301 the old URLs to the new. Only the home page URL stayed the same. For a month after the re-launch, the old URLs returned a 404. For the next month, all 404 pages (basically any non-existent URL) were 301'd to the home page. Finally, 2 months after launching, they properly 301'd the old URLs to the new. Now, the new URLs are not ranking well. I assume it's too late to realize any benefit from the 301's, just checking to see if anybody has any insight into how long Google keeps trying to crawl old/404/improperly 301'd URLs. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | AndrewMiller0 -
Canonical Tag for a 404 page
Hi i have a got a 404 page for example : www.example.com/404.aspx can i use canonical tag on this page so that when the search engine hits the page www.example.com/123123123 13123 it will say Will this be right method ?
On-Page Optimization | | usef4u0
