Benefit of using 410 gone over 404 ??
-
It seems like it takes Google Webmaster Tools to forever realize that some pages, well, are just gone.
Truth is, the 30k plus pages in 404 errors, were due to a big site URL architecture change.
I wonder, is there any benefit of using 410 GONE as a temporary measure to speed things up for this case?
Or, when would you use a 410 gone?
Thanks
-
I had the (mis)fortune of trying to deindex nearly 2 million URLs across a couple of domains recently, so had plenty of time to play with this.
Like CleverPhD I was not able to measure any real difference in the time it took to remove a page that had been 410'd vs one that had been 404'd.
The biggest factor governing the removal of the URLs was getting all the pages recrawled. Don't underestimate how long that can take. We ended up creating crawlable routes back to that content to help Google keep visiting those pages and updating the results.
-
The 410 is supposed to be more definitive
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html
404 is "not found" vs 410 is "gone
10.4.5 404 Not Found
The server has not found anything matching the Request-URI. No indication is given of whether the condition is temporary or permanent. The 410 (Gone) status code SHOULD be used if the server knows, through some internally configurable mechanism, that an old resource is permanently unavailable and has no forwarding address. This status code is commonly used when the server does not wish to reveal exactly why the request has been refused, or when no other response is applicable.
10.4.11 410 Gone
The requested resource is no longer available at the server and no forwarding address is known. This condition is expected to be considered permanent. Clients with link editing capabilities SHOULD delete references to the Request-URI after user approval. If the server does not know, or has no facility to determine, whether or not the condition is permanent, the status code 404 (Not Found) SHOULD be used instead. This response is cacheable unless indicated otherwise.
The 410 response is primarily intended to assist the task of web maintenance by notifying the recipient that the resource is intentionally unavailable and that the server owners desire that remote links to that resource be removed. Such an event is common for limited-time, promotional services and for resources belonging to individuals no longer working at the server's site. It is not necessary to mark all permanently unavailable resources as "gone" or to keep the mark for any length of time -- that is left to the discretion of the server owner.
That said, I had a similar issue on a site with a couple thousand pages and went with the 410, not sure it really made things disappear any faster than the 404 (that I noticed).
I just found a post from John Mueller from Google
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/qv49s4mTwNM/discussion
"In the meantime, we do treat 410s slightly differently than 404s. In particular, when we see a 404 HTTP result code, we'll want to confirm that before dropping the URL out of our search results. Using a 410 HTTP result code can help to speed that up. In practice, the time difference is just a matter of a few days, so it's not critical to return a 410 HTTP result code for URLs that are permanently removed from your website, returning a 404 is fine for that. "
So, use the 410 as a matter of a few days you may see a difference with 30k pages.
All of that said, are you sure with a site that big you would not need to 301 some of those pages. If you have a bunch of old news items or blog posts, would you not want to redirect them to the new URLs for those same assets? Seems like you should be able to recover some of them - at least your top traffic pages etc.
Cheers
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
-
Is RSS feed syndication an effective link building strategy? Has anyone used it and had success?
This process was recommended to us and I am having trouble understanding exactly how it works. Does this type of link building directly benefit your site or is it an indirect process? Also, can you be penalized for republishing someone's content on your feed?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | marketingdepartment.ch0 -
Client Wants To Use A .io Domain Name - How Bad For Organic?
Hi, I have a U.S. client who is stuck on a name that he wants to get as a .io (British Indian Ocean) domain name for a new site. Aside from the user confusion/weirdness, how much harder do you think this makes this sites organic in the U.S. in the future with a .io domain name? FYI, the other part of the domain name he wants to use is short, meaningless and implies nothing in and of itself. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | 945012 -
On the use of Disavow tool / Have I done it correctly, or what's wrong with my perception?
On a site I used GSA search engine ranker. Now, I got good links out of it. But, also got 4900 links from one domain. And, I thought according to ahrefs. One link from the one domain is equal to 4900 links from one domain. So, I downloaded links those 4900 and added 4899 links to disavow tool. To disavow, to keep my site stable at rankings and safe from any future penalty. Is that a correct way to try disavow tool? The site rankings are as it is.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AMTrends0 -
Whether to use new domain or old ecommerce site domain that has been incomplete for a long time.
Hello, We are starting a second store in our niche. Which of the following should I choose: A. We have a site from a year and a half ago that we put content on but never actually added products. The category and article content needs to be completely rewritten. We will completely rewrite the content to be much better and up to date. We're planning on adding products and rewriting the manufacturer descriptions. B. We could use a new domain that is closer to exact match for our main keyword. We'd just buy one for $15 I don't know whether A or B would be the fastest way to get the site going. I'm concerned that leaving a site half done for a year could cause an issue, but I really don't know. If you've got experience with this, please advise. Thank you.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Can I use content from an existing site that is not up anymore?
I want to take down a current website and create a new site or two (with new url, ip, server). Can I use the content from the deleted site on the new sites since I own it? How will Google see that?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RoxBrock0 -
How Does a Spammer Benefit from Referrer Spoofing?
A recent review of all client and personal websites showed a strange correlation. Traffic was coming in from Pelotas Brazil. The real clue was that some of my personal sites shouldn't see any traffic at all. So when I started getting traffic from Brazil I did some further research. It turns out Google is well aware of these events as seen in this forum post. Referral spam - one week online and www.web.com is using my google site Further reading lead me to this article: Stop Google Analytics Referrer Spam My question is: Why? Since the articles state referrer spam doesn't negatively affect search engine ranking then why bother in the first place? How is this spammer gaining anything by doing this? After reading both the Google Support Forum and the related article I'm still scratching my head trying to understand the method for this madness.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | JonathanGoodman0 -
Is a directory like this white hat? Useful?
This is one of my competitor's backlinks: http://bit.ly/mMPhmn Prices for inclusion on this page go from $50 for 6 months to $300 for a permanent listing. Do most of you guys do paid directories like this for your SEO Clients? My gut is telling me to run away...but I don't want to miss a good opportunity if I should be taking it.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MarieHaynes0