How do I fix a 404 with a 301
-
I understand the need for fixing 404's but I have yet to have a serious walkthrough of how to set up a 301. From all the talk on the forums and such I'm pretty sure this is easy but I've just never done it before and I could really use a walk through.
Thanks
-
Hi Ben,
Did one of these responses answer your question for you? If not, also let us know if you're running anything like Wordpress or Drupal, and we can help give you more specific answers.
-
-
Hi Ben,
You probably want to redirect a single page if it is going to a 404. In which case you probably just want add code into the header of the problem page. Whilst you are at it, it might be worth checking that your non-www. pages are forwarding to the www versions. (http://exampledomain.com -> http://www.exampledomain.com)
PHP Redirect
Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
Header( "Location: http://www.exampledomain.com" );
?>Htaccess 301 Redirect (non-www. to www.)
Options +FollowSymLinks RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.exampledomain.com$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.exampledomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]Custom 404 Page
I would also suggest a custom 404 page with links to your most popular pages, search and a back button.
Hope this helps.
C
-
I use .net when i build sites, iuse the Application_Error method to see if the error was a 404 tthen 301 to my home page. so any broken link 301 to my home page
-
404 error is rendered when the resource requested is not found. You can do 2 things:
- Implement 301 redirect to the new resource if it is related. The kind of redirect will depend upon the type of server your website is hosted on.
- If 301 redirect is not possible on all the pages (it's understandable), a custom 404 page is a worthy option. It will avoid unnecessary loss of visitors from your site as they tend to get pissed with the default 404 page. It will not only help you retain the visitors but also redirect them to the important pages of your website. E.g.Custom 404 Page
Hope it helps.
Regards
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
-
301 redirects
I am in the process of truncating many of the URLs using a plugin installed on Wordpress. The question is does google penalize or have issues with too many 301 redirects on your site. I have many many products I want to do this with. I thought I read somewhere that 301 redirects should be held to a minimum. Would appreciate any assistance
On-Page Optimization | | xinar0 -
301 Redirect or landing page
Hi everyone. I'm currently doing some SEO for a client, at the moment he has some landing pages which are categorised, but the category is set as a 302 redirect. I have a dilemma whether to 301 redirect to the landing page or make a page for each category. The link structure is as follows - http://examplesite.co.uk/products/fire/company-1/product/ so currently this is set as a 302 redirect - http://examplesite.co.uk/products/fire/company-1/ Do I make this page a category page and link the page to the children with some on-page optimisation or 301 redirect it?
On-Page Optimization | | Unbranded_Lee0 -
301 to canonical
I'm doing some work on a website, they have a very popular product search where you enter a specific part code (6 digits) and it takes you to the product. So for example Search: 123456 Page redirected to domain.com/product/123456 With a canonical of domain.com/product/this-is-the-product-title Would it be beneficial to redirect from /product/123456 to /product/this-is-the-product-title Google seems to be indexing both versions. For some of these products a reasonable amount of links are built.
On-Page Optimization | | ThomasHarvey0 -
Can you 301 redirect to a page that has other pages 301 to it?
Two years ago updated url page to include better keywords and used a 301 redirect from the old page to the new. so www.example.com/keyword-1st-generation.html now points to ... www.example.com/keyword-2nd-generation.html That moved the pages up in ranking, but now have better kw for the url, so is it okay to redirect the /keyword-2nd-geration-html to www.example.com/keyword-3rd-generation.html And what is a good length of time before removing the 1st-generation url? It's been 3 years and there is no chance of using it again. Plus, no sign of it in analytics.
On-Page Optimization | | AllIsWell0 -
Depreciated content - Canononical, 301, or noindex?
I have a page that has existed on our website for many years, without ever being updated.This is what I would consider an "evergreen" content page, but it is now considered out of date and depreciated. It was never ranking high for any keyword in particular, but it is a page that has existed for many years. We have now created a more up-to-date version of the page, with much more informative content, a new URL, and of course it is SEO optimized. I am puzzled as to what I should do with my old page. Should I add a canononical link pointing it to the new updated page, or should I 301 redirect it to the new page, or should I no-index the old page? What are your thoughts and suggestions? I can give more information if needed. Thank you!!
On-Page Optimization | | jcph0 -
My report also notes that I have 176 Rel Canonical. What does this mean and how do I fix it. Thanks
My report also notes that I have 176 Rel Canonical. What does this mean and how do I fix it. Thanks http://pro.seomoz.org/campaigns/95663/issues/18
On-Page Optimization | | cyaindc0 -
301 redirect and then keywords in URL
Hi, Matt Cutts says that 301 redirects, including the ones on internal pages, causes the loss of a little bit of link juice. But also, I know that keywords in the URL are very important. On our site, we've got unoptimized URLs (few keywords) in the internal pages. Is it worth doing a 301 redirect in order to optimize the URLs for each main page. 301 redirects are the only way we can do it on our premade cart For example (just an example) say our main (1 of the 4) keywords for the page is "brown shoes". I'm wondering if I should redirect something like shoes.com/shoecolors.html to shoes.com/brown-shoes.html In other words, with the loss of juice would we come out ahead? In what instances would we come out ahead?
On-Page Optimization | | BobGW0 -
Correct use of Canonical link vs 301 redirect
Hi All, Seeking yet more advice. SEOMOZ tools have told me I have duplicate content on one of my sites and I am keen to clean this up. I am not to familiar with the following so thought I would ask. The duplicate content is shown on : www.mysite.com www.mysite.com/index.html Obviously I only see index.html when I check the code so what is the best method of resolving the duplicate content, Canonical or 301? Can you give me an example 🙂 Thanks all
On-Page Optimization | | wedmonds0