Does it matter? 404 v.s. 302 > Page Not Found
-
Hey Mozers,
What are your thoughts of this situation i'm stuck in all inputs welcome
I am in the middle of this massive domain migration to a new server. Also we are going to be having a very clean SEO friendly url structure. While I was doing some parsing and cleaning up some old urls I stumbled upon a strange situation on my website.
I have a bunch of "dead pages" and they are 302'd to a "page not found" probably a old mistake of one of the past developers. (To clarify the HTTP Status code is not 404)
Should I try to fight to get all these "dead pages" a 404 error code or could I just leave the temp redirect 302 > "page not found" ( even though I know for a fact theses pages are not going to turn on again)
-
Ya, that's a mess. Either 301 to a live page or let the 404 be delivered on its own.
-
Looks like my stystem is set up to 301 to a 404. Which do you think Google with honor? (the 301 or the 404)
Also wouldn't having a 301 to a 404 keep bots crawling our server because its a redirect instead of the server providing a 404 or 410
-
Depending upon how many you have (you said "a bunch"), there are multiple ways of fixing this.
If you are using a CMS, you can install a universal 404 handler, which will either direct a 404 page to the top level menu item of that group, or to the home page. If using a asp or html, I'm sure a decent developer could code one up for you.
If the dead pages are ranked (indexed) pages, I would make sure they forward to the new page that exists on your new server.
-
It sounds like they're 302'ing to a 200 instead of a 404 to a page that says, "page not found"... In that case, you should get them to be legitimate 404s or 410s. A custom 404 page would be a nice touch as well to help clean up the navigation.
By the time you migrate (via 301) you could point these to the most applicable section of your new site where they should have pointed on the old site and be pretty much done with your clean up.
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
-
Does Google considers the cached content of a page if it's redirected to new page?
Hi all, If we redirect an old page to some new page, we know that content relevancy between source page and this new page matters at Google. I just wonder if Google is looking at the content relevancy of old page (from cache) and new page too. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Linking from high ranking sub domain pages to less ranking main domain pages to benefit latter
Hi all, We have our product guide pages on sub domain which are years old, so have some backlinks and high ranking for the beand related queries. Now we created new guide pages on our main website and we want these new pages to rank top beating the old pages from sub domain. Again we can't deindex or rel canonical to solve the issue as there are some part of users still using the old pages. We are planning to give a link from every old page of sub domain to same new page on main domain. Will this linking increases the authority of new pages technically and helps in ranking better? Like we give a link to "Moz guide 1" page to "Moz guide 2" page to rank latter better. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Do we need to maintain consistency in page titles suffix?
Hi all, We usually give "brand & primary keyword" across all pages in website like "vertigo tiles". Do we need to maintain this suffix across all page titles? What if we change according to the page? Will Google downlook for not maintaining these page titles suffix like I mentioned? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Google Search Analytics desktop site to losing page position compared to the mobile version of the site
Looking at Google Search Analytics page position by device. The desktop version has seen a dramatic drop in the last 60 days compared to the mobile site. Could this be caused by mobile first indexing? Has Google had any releases that might have caused this?
Algorithm Updates | | merch_zzounds0 -
The evolution of Google's 'Quality' filters - Do thin product pages still need noindex?
I'm hoping that Mozzers can weigh in with any recent experiences with eCommerce SEO..... I like to assume (perhaps incorrectly) that Google's 'Quality' filters (formerly known as Panda) have evolved with some intelligence since Panda first launched and started penalising eCommerce sites for having thin product pages. On this basis i'd expect that the filters are now less heavy handed and know that product pages with no or little product description on them are still a quality user experience for people who want to buy that product. Therefore my question is this...
Algorithm Updates | | QubaSEO
Do thin product pages still need noindex given that more often that not they are a quality search result for those using a product specific search query? Has anyone experienced penalty recently (last 12 months) on an ecommerce site because of a high number of thin product pages?0 -
Translate page?
Hi Guy's I have a question about Google asking me to translate the page when i search on brandname. It's in the Dutch Google and the searchquery is: "rotomshop" I can find why Google wants to translate the page because all our settings are Dutch. Does anyone have a suggestion? Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | Happy-SEO1 -
Have I been Hit by a Penguin? No Warning in Webmaster / Some Pages still Rank
Hi all, I have recently signed up to MOZ as I have seen a large drop in the turnover of a site I work with as well as a slump in visitors. I know part of this slump is the transition from google product search from being free to paid and chewing through our adwords budget quicker. The other part though seems a little more tricky, I have always been under the impression from reading online that an algorithm update would see a site destroyed for most terms and a notification generated in webmaster tools, however the site still seems to still rank for some terms, others however it has fallen off the face of the earth for. As you can see in the attachment webmaster tools is showing much decreased visibility, and MOZ agrees with this. Key terms that have lost rank have done so by around 4-10 positions. The content on the site has all been hand written by myself, however some of the pages are a little "stale" so I am currently running through re-writing every product page on the site (1000 products or so) all my product pages grade a minimum B with 99% A on the Moz page grader. I am keeping my fingers crossed that fresh content should assist in getting google interested again? However my real questions is, Is this Penguin? or is this just stale content? dmDdMr5.jpg pYkzck0.jpg 9f4mgM9.jpg
Algorithm Updates | | speedingorange1 -
Google showing different pages for same search term in uk and usa
Hi Guys, I have an interesting question and think Google is being a bit strange.. Can anyone tell me why when I input the term design agency in Google.co.uk it shows one page, but when i tyupe in the same search term in Google.com (worldwide search) it shows another page.. Any ideas guys? Is this not bit strange?? Any help here be much appreciated.. Thanks Gareth
Algorithm Updates | | GAZ090