Site architecture change - +30,000 404's in GWT
-
So recently we decided to change the URL structure of our online e-commerce catalogue - to make it easier to maintain in the future.
But since the change, we have (partially expected) +30K 404's in GWT - when we did the change, I was doing 301 redirects from our Apache server logs but it's just escalated.
Should I be concerned of "plugging" these 404's, by either removing them via URL removal tool or carry on doing 301 redirections? It's quite labour intensive - no incoming links to most of these URL's, so is there any point?
Thanks,
Ben
-
Hi Ben,
The answer to your question boils down to usability and link equity:
- Usability: Did the old URLs get lots of Direct and Referring traffic? E.g., do people have them bookmarked, type them directly into the address bar, or follow links from other sites? If so, there's an argument to be made for 301 redirecting the old URLs to their equivalent, new URLs. That makes for a much more seamless user experience, and increases the odds that visitors from these traffic sources will become customers, continue to be customers, etc.
- Link equity: When you look at a Top Pages report (in Google Webmaster Tools, Open Site Explorer, or ahrefs), how many of those most-linked and / or best-ranking pages are old product URLs? If product URLs are showing up in these reports, they definitely require a 301 redirect to an equivalent, new URL so that link equity isn't lost.
However, if (as is common with a large number of ecommerce sites), your old product URLs got virtually zero Direct or Referring traffic, and had virtually zero deep links, then letting the URLs go 404 is just fine. I think I remember a link churn report in the early days of LinkScape when they reported that something on the order of 80% of the URLs they had discovered would be 404 within a year. URL churn is a part of the web.
If you decide not to 301 those old URLs, then you simply want to serve a really consistent signal to engines that they're gone, and not coming back. Recently, JohnMu from Google suggested recently that there's a tiny difference in how Google treats 404 versus 410 response codes - 404s are often re-crawled (which leads to those 404 error reports in GWT), whereas 410 is treated as a more "permanent" indicator that the URL is gone for good, so 410s are removed from the index a tiny bit faster. Read more: http://www.seroundtable.com/google-content-removal-16851.html
Hope that helps!
-
Hi,
Are you sure these old urls are not being linked from somewhere (probably internally)? Maybe the sitemap.xml was forgotten and is pointing to all the old urls still? I think that for 404's to show in GWT there needs to be a link to them from somewhere, so in the first instance in GWT go to the 404s and have a look at where they are linked from (you can do this with moz reports also). If it is an internal page like a sitemap, or some forgotten menu/footer feature or similar that is still linking to old pages then yes you certainly want to clear this up! If this is the case, once you have fixed the internal linking issues you should have significantly reduced list of 404s and can then concentrate on these on a more case by case basis (assuming they are being triggered by external links).
Hope that 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
-
Competitor has same site with multiple languages
Hey Moz, I am working with a dating review website and we have noticed one of our competitors is basically making duplicated of their site with .com, .de, .co.uk, etc. My first thought is this is basically a way to game the system but I could be wrong. They are tapping into googles geo results by including major cities in each state, i.e. "dating in texas" "dating in atlanta" however the content itself doesn't really change. I can't figure out exactly why they are ranking so much higher. For example using some other SEO tools they have a traffic estimate of $500,000 monthly, where as we are sitting around $2000. So, either the traffic estimates are grossly misrepresenting traffic volume, OR they really are crushing it. TLDR: Is geo locating/translating sites a valid way to create backlinks? It's seems a lot like a PBN.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | HashtagHustler0 -
Forcing Entire site to HTTPS
We have a Wordpress site and hope to force everything to HTTPS. We change the site name (in wordpress settings) to https://mydomain.com In the htaccess code = http://moz.com/blog/htaccess-file-snippets-for-seos Ensure we are using HTTPS version of the site. RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !on RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301] but some blogs http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19168489/https-force-redirect-not-working-in-wordpress say RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off RewriteRule ^ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301] Which one is right? 🙂 and are we missing anything?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | joony0 -
Should You Link Back from Client's Website?
We had a discussion in the office today, about if it can help or hurt you to link back to your site from one that you optimize, host, or manage. A few ideas that were mentioned: HURT:
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | David-Kley
1. The website is not directly related to your niche, therefore Google will treat it as a link exchange or spammy link.
2. Links back to you are often not surrounded by related text about your services, and looks out of place to users and Search Engines. HELP:
1. On good (higher PR, reputable domain) domains, a link back can add authority, even if the site is not directly related to your services.
2. Allows high ranking sites to show users who the provider is, potentially creating a new client, and a followed incoming link on anchor text you can choose. So, what do you think? Test results would be appreciated, as we are trying to get real data. Benefits and cons if you have an opinion.2 -
Local Map Pack: What's the best way to handle twin cities?
Google is increasing cracking down on bad local results. However, in many regions of the US there are twin cities or cities that reside next to each other, like Minneapolis-Saint Paul or Kansas City. According to Google guidelines your business should only be listed in the city in which your business is physically located. However, we've noticed that results just outside of the local map pack will still rank, especially for businesses that service the home. For example, let's say you have a ACME Plumbing in Saint Paul, MN. If you were to perform a search for "Plumbing Minneapolis" you typically see local Minneapolis plumbers, then Saint Paul outliers. Usually the outliers are in the next city or just outside of the Google map centroid. Are there any successful strategies to increase rank on these "Saint Paul outliers" that compete with local Minneapolis results or are the results always going lag behind in lieu of perceived accuracy? We're having to compete against some local competitors that are using some very blackhat techniques to rank multiple sites locally (in the map results). They rank multiple sites for the same company, under different company names and UPS store addresses. Its pretty obvious, especially when you see a UPS store on the street view of the address! We're not looking to bend the rules, but rather compete safely. Can anything be done in this service based scenario?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AaronHenry0 -
Build Backlinks on this site? - Advice Please
Hello, I am trying to build some backlinks to my E-Commerce site and was wondering how you all view sites like this: http://www.bookmark4you.com/ If I were to put a listing for my company/site on that site, would that be considered a good backlink or a bad backlink (in terms of Google's guidelines)... There are a bunch of sites like these, online directory or bookmark sites, and i was wondering what the general opinion is on using them for backlinking purposes. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. THANKS!!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Prime850 -
Link Building: High Ranking Site vs. Relevancy
Hello, When link building, is it acceptable to link with a site that has high authority but has minimal relevancy to our site? For example, if we sell nutritional products and the link exchange would be with a site that relates to free coupons, would that work? Also, if we are publishing articles on other sites, should we also publish them on our own site? Should we add "nofollow" if we publish them in our site?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | odegi0 -
How do you keep a record of your onsite SEO changes
Hi Everyone, I'm new to the whole SEO process, so was wondering if anyone can help me. I want to keep a record of all SEO activities in one place for the website i'm trying to optimise for. I have created an excel sheet which have the follwoing tabs -Overview & Rankings
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mcliddy
- Keyword Research Competitior Analysis
- Keyword Distribution Map Onpage SEO Link Ideas Link Research
-Link Building Log
- PPC Campaign Does this all seem correct?
Could anyone help in telling me what process you do to keep a record of all SEO onsite activity? I hope this isn't a stupid post, but help would be very much appreciated Many Thanks Matt0 -
Competitors have local "mirror" sites
I have noticed that some of my competitors have set up "mirror" homepages set up for different counties, towns, or suburbs. In one case the mirror homepages are virtually identical escept for the title and in the other case about half of the content id duplicate and the other half is different. both of these competors have excellent rankings and traffic. I am surprised about these results, does anyone care to comment about it and is this a grey hat technique that is likely to be penalized eventually. thx Diogenes
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | diogenes0