Hundreds Of 404s Best Dealt Wtih 301-Palooza?
-
Was looking at a site's webmaster tools where there are a few hundred 404s for a site. God only knows where all those urls came from or what they once were or what. Two questions;
-
How bad is all this for the site's overall ranking?
-
Should I just make sure they go nowhere and 301 them all to the homepage or some other possibly relevant page? Anything bad that could happen with 301ing all this away?
-
Also, the site has no sitemap submitted to Google. Any tips on that?
Thanks!
-
-
You're a genius! Thanks!!
-
"Remove Page From Search Results & Cache"
-
Hey Brent,
Following those steps, do I then choose:
"Remove Page From Search Results & Cache"
"Remove Page From Cache Only"
"Remove Directory"
-
Thanks, Brent!
-
I don't believe so.
-
Wow, one url at a time? Is there a bulk upload?
-
Google Webmaster Tools => Site Configuration => Crawler Access => Remove URL (tab)
-
Hey Brent,
Thanks for the message.
How do I remove them from the index?
Thanks!
-
Yes, so many 404's is bad, but it all depends on how long Google has seen them. If too many you may find yourself in Google's 3 month ranking hole. First you should set up a 301 and try to redirect as many as possible to relevant pages.
Second, use Google Webmaster Tools and start removing the bad urls from their index.
Might be a lot of work right now, but you have to clean them up asap.
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
-
When to break a universal 301
Hi all IN Jan of this year our company re-branded and in doing so we changed the domain of our website. So as to transfer the domain authority from the old site to the new we implemented a global 301 from the old domain. So far our old domain still ranks as 41 but new domain as 38. Unfortunately due to old SEO agencies black hat activities we received a Google penalty on the old domain. We managed to remove the penalty after removing as many spammy links as possible and we also submitted a disvow notice for links we couldn't remove. My question is, is the new domain being harmed by the global 301 from the old domain? And if I remove the 301 from the old domain and let the new site stand on its own could i be faced with rankings disaster? All thoughts welcome! Thanks
Technical SEO | | gavinr
Gavin0 -
Importance of 301 Redirects
Hello, I have been brought in at the last minute to consult for an e-commerce client who is about to relaunch their website. The site currently receives 8000 visits a month, 3100 of which are from organic search. They have a few thousand product pages. The web development firm they are using is changing all of the old product page urls and using 'search engine friendly' urls for the new site, which is expected to launch in a few weeks. However, they did not/are not planning on including 301 redirects from the old URLs. Other than simply stating 'this will be bad for your SEO', what would be a correct way of explaining to the client how much of a problem it will be if their new site launches without 301s. For example, is this a big enough issue to delay the launch of the site / get in a contract dispute with the web developer?
Technical SEO | | stageagent0 -
301 redirects and seo..
I bought a domain and it has nice traffic. It only has about 5 main pages in php When i got the site i switched to html because php was overkill. I did the 301 and google deleted the php files and replaced with html version when i check site:domain.com It has been about 7 days. I DID NOT use 301 for each of the 5 pages to go php to html instead is used this code RewriteEngine On
Technical SEO | | samerk
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mydomain.com
RewriteRule (.) http://www.mydomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]
RedirectMatch 301 (.).php$ http://www.mydomain.com$1.html So basically if you load php it will load the html version. dog.php > dog.html Is this OKAY? or should it be done differently.... worried! Thanks !0 -
How to set Home page for the best effect
My head is spinning with all the confusing possibilities. Does anybody have an easy answer for setting up the home page and its canonical-ishness ie Which gives the best SEO Mojo ? \ \default.aspx \keyword\ \keyword\default.aspx Thanking you in advance for reducing the number of business migranes around the globe.
Technical SEO | | blinkybill0 -
What would happen if 301 redirects were not in place
Good Morning from 14 degrees C sunny Wetherby UK 🙂 My question is please.... "When a new site is given a total makover ie old urls are re written to radically different ones I know if you dont set up 301 redirects the infamous 404 error page will rear its head. But i wonder if 301 redirects were not configured how long on average does it take google to index the new site and serp links finally point to the new site". Thanks in advance 🙂
Technical SEO | | Nightwing0 -
301 Redirect
The SEOmoz crawl campaign found some 404 errors in my Joomla site poker-brands.ca. So, I figured I would set up 301 redirects in my hosting account to make sure bots don't read that there is a page missing. For example: This link gave a 404 error in the crawl: http://www.poker-brands.ca/download-pokertracker-software/holdemmanager I redirected it to: http://www.poker-brands.ca/download-pt3-pokertracker-software/holdemmanager-hem-hm2 However, when I visit the first link it doesn't send me to the second link. Am I supposed to get forwarded to the second link now?
Technical SEO | | Uramark0 -
301 Redirect
Hi there, We are re-branding & re-structuring our website, there will be quite a number of 301 re-directs, possibly hundreds. The question is: Should i wait until the re-branding has been completed and do al the 301's in one go?, or should I try and do 301's as i go along? Kind Regards
Technical SEO | | Paul780 -
Which is best blogging platform from SEO POV?
I am curious to find out what is the blogging platform of choice for enterprize level companies (employees more than 500, revenue more tan 150M). What would be the best solution from SEO point of view? I have used Wordpress in the past for small companies and feel that is the best. We are currently using Telligent. Is anybody using it?
Technical SEO | | Amjath0