How to treat pages that are removed?

[thobryan]

I have a website that need be very up-to-date, I mean, pages can be published just for 30 days, after that it should be unpublished. Everyday more than 300 pages is "removed", For theses pages I am returning http code "410" (Gone), also I remove from the sitemap. Now, I am checking Google WebMasterTools and I am getting thousands of pages not found.

So... My questions

1. Does it have SEO impact?
2. How is the best approach to treat it?

[Esaky]

Thank you, i created an Custom 404 Error Page already. ! But i just want to know if that will work fine. Thanks for the suggestion ! Will not redirect all the pages to the homepage !

[mediawyse]

How is redirecting ALL pages back to a home page the BEST approach from a customer usability standpoint? I'll answer that for you, it's not.

At the very least, you should be sending users to a custom 404 error page and then providing them recommended options they can examine further. Just sending them back to the home page does nothing to "qualify' the visitor. Further it can and does increase exit rates since your home page is usually NOT the most qualified page on your site for the average visitor.

Most Wordpress custom redirect plugins allow substantial functionality in either the establishment of custom 404 error pages or the ability to send a redirect to related pages within a site. That's always the best practice as opposed to the "expedient" practice of "just redirecting all the 404 error pages to a Homepage."

Sounds to me like you should be performing an individual page audit and seeing which pages have link and PA authority then "individually" redirecting those pages to a more qualified page. In 9 of 10 cases, that is most definitely NOT your home page.

But that's just my experience. I hope that helps.

[Esaky]

Casey,
Thanks for the info, i have a doubt, Why we should not use any WordPress Plugin to redirect all the 404 error pages to Homepage ?

Like i have a Submit News section, first all the links were in a single page, after the updates, now each link has sub pages. So i removed them, Which shows me more 404 error and at the same time , i want to stick to that for the link and popularity of PA.

What should i Do ! Please Suggest me !

[mediawyse]

Matt Cutts with Google has publicly stated (as has John Muir here) that 404 and 410 errors are treated the same and won't hurt you algorithmically. But there is clear evidence that it can impact usability and customer experience.

In your case, the 410 permanently gone error code is the appropriate status to be returning in your situation. The pages aren't returning, ever. My experience shows that Google tends to drop 410 pages from the index almost immediately, whereas it can still take days or weeks for 404s to completely fall out of the index.

However, usability in your case comes into play. 30 days seems a pretty DRASTIC cutoff date for content (except in the case of finite classified ads, event listings, etc.). You may want to eliminate one hard-and-fast rule and look at this issue from a more flexible viewpoint. Can some of these 410's be redirected to more appropriate (read current) resources via 301s? How about link equity? Are some of these redirects actually worth salvaging and redirecting to more related long-term resources via 301s to salvage link equity?

Finally, bounce rate, time-on-site, and general usability continue to become more important from an algorithmic standpoint. One of the things I do internally with my sites and those of my clients is track the 410/404 error traffic on specific URLs and make sure that if these pages are still being searched for and/or visited that I am mindful of the site experience. First impressions do matter...especially on 404/410 pages.

I hope that helps. Good luck!