Crawl Issue for Deleted Pages
-
Hi,
sometimes, I just delete a page and not necessarily want to make a 404 to another page.
So Google Webmaster Tools shows me 108 'not found' pages under 'Crawling Errors'.
Is that a problem for my site?
Can I ignore this with good conscience?
Shall I make 404 to my homepage?I am confused and would like to hear your opinion on this.
Best, Robin
-
Hi Robin,
Just wanted to clarify - when you delete a page and googlebot tries to access that URL it returns a 404 (not found) response - i.e. those pages you're deleting are 404-ing.
I'm assuming you're asking whether or not you should return a custom 404 page (see guidance here). Creating a useful custom 404 page is a good idea as it helps visitors to your site find an appropriate alternative to the page you've deleted. This often a better solution than just displaying your homepage.
Depending on why you're deleting these pages you might elect to 301 redirect any outdated URLs to the current version of the content (rather than just letting these pages 404) - more on this later.
You also asked if these 404s can cause you problems. Obviously 404s can cause problems for users - if they can't find the content they're looking for, chances are they may elect to leave your site and go somewhere else to find whatever they need.
From an SEO perspective, allowing pages you no longer wish to be indexed 404 is fine. However, when you delete a page you should also ensure that you remove the page from your sitemap and also remove any links to the page across your site. However you should be careful with letting some pages 404. Rand wrote a post way back in 2009 essentially he highlights that if a page has good links from external sources, and/or, is receiving substantive traffic and/or has an obvious URL visitors or linking sites intended to reach then you should 301 redirect to an appropriate page.
I hope this helps,
Hannah
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
-
Images on their own page?
Hi Mozers, We have images on their own separate pages that are then pulled onto content pages. Should the standalone pages be indexable? On the one hand, it seems good to have an image on it's own page, with it's own title. On the other hand, it may be better SEO for crawler to find the image on a content page dedicated to that topic. Unsure. Would appreciate any guidance! Yael
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | yaelslater1 -
Too many SEO changes needed on a page. Create a new page?
I've been doing some research on a keyword with Page Optimization. I'm finding there's a lot of changes suggested. I'm wondering that because of the amount of changes required is it better to create a new page entirely from scratch that has all the suggestions implemented OR change the current page? Thanks, Chris
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chris29181 -
Specific page does not index
Hi, First question: Working on the indexation of all pages for a specific client, there's one page that refuses to index. Google Search console says there's a robots.txt file, but I can't seem to find any tracks of that in the backend, nor in the code itself. Could someone reach out to me and tell me why this is happening? The page: https://www.brody.be/nl/assistentiewoningen/ Second question: Google is showing another meta description than the one our client gave in in Yoast Premium snippet. Could it be there's another plugin overwriting this description? Or do we have to wait for it to change after a specific period of time? Hope you guys can help
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | conversal0 -
2 pages competing
Hi all, My website currently has 2 pages that address the theme 'property investment in manchester' or 'buy to let manchester'. https://www.knightknox.com/developments/manchester/ https://www.knightknox.com/investments/manchester I am a bit concerned that we are competing against ourselves for these keywords. In my opinion the /investments page provides better content, but the /developments page ranks higher in Google. What do you think would be the best course of action?: Leave as is Merge the contents of both pages Redirect the /developments to /investments Or something else? Any ideas welcome. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brian-madden0 -
Having issues crawling a website
We looked to use the Screaming Frog Tool to crawl this website and get a list of all meta-titles from the site, however, it only resulted with the one result - the homepage. We then sought to obtain a list of the URLs of the site by creating a sitemap using https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/. Once again however, we just go the one result - the homepage. There is something that seems to be restricting these tools from crawling all pages. If you anyone can shed some light as to what this could be, we'd be most appreciative.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gavo0 -
Xml sitemap Issue... Xml sitemap generator facilitating only few pages for indexing
Help me I have a website earlier 10,000 WebPages were facilitated in xml sitemap for indexation, but from last few days xml sitemap generator facilitating only 3300 WebPages for indexing. Please help me to resolve the issue. I have checked Google webmaster indexed pages, its showing 8,141. I have tried 2-3 paid tools, but all are facilitating 3300 pages for indexing. I am not getting what is the exact problem, whether the server not allowing or the problem with xml sitemap generator. Please please help me…
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | udistm0 -
Hey guys i have this issues on my crawling report what should i do to exlude the pages? are d
Overly-Dynamic URL Overly-Dynamic URL Although search engines can crawl dynamic URLs, search engine representatives have warned against using over 2 parameters in a given URL. Search engines may also see dynamic versions of the same URL as unique URLs, creating duplicate content.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | adulter0 -
Countries - Duplication Issues
Hi there, We have a .co.uk website which has been up and running for the past 5 years now and we have now decided because we have a big market in Ireland .ie we want to have a .ie website, the question is, is it ok just to replicate the .co.uk for the .ie website? Are there duplication issues? Kind Regards,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul781