Lots of 404s listed in Top Pages by Page Authority

[giddygrafix]

Hi guys,

I'm slowly getting to grips with all the aspects of using Moz.
Looking at my link analysis, under the tab labelled Top Pages by Page Authority, there's an awful lot of 404 pages listed. Are these pages which are being linked to (either internally or externally), and should I put a 301 redirect on all the pages listed?

I've attached a picture...

moz-screen-shot.jpg

[Muskrat37]

Sorry to revive this old thread, but I don't see a better place to put this.

I am looking at the same report - I have a ton of 404's on the list, however I have implemented 301 redirects already.  Will this list update as the 301's get indexed?  Is it possible to have this list reflect the new pages that the 301's point to?  As it sits right now, the "Top pages by Authority" report is useless as it's showing me old pages that no longer exist.

Thanks in advance for your answer.

Chad

[giddygrafix]

Thanks for your reply Joe, very helpful.

now it's pointed out to me, it's obvious there's nothing pointing at the pages listed.

I'm wondering how these URLs are even being picked up though. Looking at the structure (/shop/article), they're possibly from an old version of our online shop... so mostly the products still exist, just not on those URLs. It might be worth putting a stack of 301 redirects in place of those 404s, or it might be a complete waste of time... II'm sure your blog post will help me decide. Thanks Again.

(edit)... yeah i reckon I'll 301 all those pages on which the products still exist... seems to make sense.

But I'd still like to understand where these URLs are being picked up... if they're not on our website and not found in In-Bound Links, where are they being found or generated???

[Joe.Robison]

That second column titled LRD's means "Linking Root Domains" so from what I can see from your screenshot, you have 0 external links to each of those pages. I'm not sure off the top of my head but I think if you click that 'Export CSV' button in the top right it gives you much more information including internal links. If that one doesn't, then exporting a Moz crawl report will give you what you need.

In general, if your 404 pages are gone and are not of much use, it's ok to let them 404. See the Not Found section of this post http://moz.com/blog/how-to-fix-crawl-errors-in-google-webmaster-tools and read the two other links in that section for more info.