What to do with 404 errors when you don't have a similar new page to 301 to ??

[Dan-Lawrence]

Hi

If you have 404 errors for pages that you dont have similar content pages to 301 them to, should you just leave them (the 404's are optimised/qood quality with related links & branding etc) and they will eventually be de-indexed since no longer exist or should you 'remove url' in GWT ?

Cheers

Dan

[Dan-Lawrence]

Thanks Chaps !!

Have a great weekend

CHeers

Dan

[KevinBudzynski]

If no pages are related, I typically take them to a customized 404 page. You don't need to remove it from GWT:

When a page is updated or removed, it will automatically fall out of our search results. You don’t need to do anything to make this happen.

[kchandler]

If i do not have a relevant page to redirect them to i always send them back to the homepage. This way the end user, search engines and link equity are still brought back to the highest level page. It isn't the best case scenario but it is better than losing your equity and end users getting an error.

Hope this helps!

• Kyle