Whether letting an old category just 404 out is OK
-
Hello,
We've got some hidden categories that are still indexed in the search engines. If there are no links to these hidden categories, can we just let them 404 out and be OK SEO wise? We can't 301 redirect them. It's about 50 categories.
-
Hi Bob,
Just to extend on Jane's point and answer your question - if you 301 redirected every single page on your site, it would overtime slow down your website and if a lot of those pages don't have strong authority then it might be detected and potentially harm your sites rankings. A link to a quora post below provides additional reasons.
http://www.quora.com/Why-should-one-avoid-overusing-301-redirects
-
Hi Bob,
This is fine - Google recommends 404 / 410 for removing pages - if you want them gone even quicker, have them return 404s and use Google's page removal tool.
-
1. Why can't you 301 them?
2. If you want them out of the index, try a manual URL removal via Webmaster Tools.
-
Hey Bob,
If these pages have been clearly hidden in the first place, then from my perspective I already see no value in these pages.
Having non-important pages returning 404 error pages is ok. We only maintain the existing link juice or page authority for pages that have been taken down or reoptimised, in order to maintain existing SEO efforts or to direct users to an alternative page.
I hope this helps.
Regards,
Vahe
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
-
Google says Geolocation Redirects Are Okay - is this really ok ?
Our aim is to send a user from https://abc.com/en/us to** https://abc..com/en/uk/ **if they came to our US English site from the UK So we came across this document - https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2014/05/creating-right-homepage-for-your.html We are planning to follow this in our international website based on the article by google : automatically serve the appropriate HTML content to your users depending on their location and language settings. You will either do that by using server-side 302 redirects or by dynamically serving the right HTML content. Will there be any ranking issues/ penalty issue because of following this or because of 302 redirects ? **Another article - **https://www.seroundtable.com/google-geolocation-redirects-are-okay-26933.html
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | NortonSupportSEO0 -
Whether to disavow fettish sites
Hello, In one niche, all competitors have fettish backlinks. Some of these sites have related products on them, some are just information, but some border on porn sites. I'm wondering which if not all of these I should disavow. There's quite a few. We're doing a non-manual penguin recovery based on link building like paid links, unnatural anchor text and doorway sites. Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Old Press Release sites - Which ones do you Disavow and leave alone
Hi Mozers! I need your help. I'm in the final stages of a huge link audit and press releases are a big concern. As you know, press release distribution sites up until 2012 had "follow" links, giving webmasters a delight of having their keyword anchor texts a big boost in rankings. These are the websites that are troubling me today so i would appreciate your input on my strategy below as most of these websites are asking for money to remove them: 1. Press Release sites that are on the same C-class - Disavow 2. Not so authoritative press release websites that just follow my www domain only (no anchor texts) - I leave it alone 3. Not so authoritative press release websites but have anchor texts that are followed - Disavow 4. Post 2012 press release websites that have "followed" anchor text keywords - Request to remove, then disavow 5. Post 2012 press release websites that just follow my www domain only (no anchor texts) - leave it alone #2 and #5 are my biggest concern. Now more than ever I would appreciate your follow ups. I will respond quickly and apply "good answers" to the one's that make the most sense as my appreciation to you. God bless you all.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Shawn1240 -
Internal Links to Ecommerce Category Pages
Hello, I read a while back, and I can't find it now, that you want to add internal links to your main category pages. Does that still apply? If so, for a small site (100 products) what is recommended? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
How to 301 redirect from old domain and their pages to new domain and pages?
Hi i am a real newbie to this and i hope for a guide on how to do this. I seen a few moz post and is quiet confusing hopefully somebody able to explain it in layman terms to me. I would like to 301 redirect this way, both website contain the same niche. oldwebsite.com > newwebsite.com and also its pages..... oldwebsite.com/test >newwebsite.com/test So my question here is i would like to host my old domain and its pages in my new website hosting in order to redirect to my new domain and its pages how do i do that? would my previous page link overwrite my new page link? or it add on the juice link? Do i need to host the whole old domain website into my new hosting in order to redirect the old pages? really confusing here, thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | andzon0 -
Redirect from old domain to a new domain
Hi, assuming i have an old domain that i would like to redirect it to the new domain because the old domain contain good links on it and been ranking for its keywords. Would it be a wise choice? and can i redirect my sub domain into my new one too? for example website1.com/life > website2.com/life and how do i do so? can i do that by hosting the old domain in my new domain hosting and do all those redirect include sub domain redirect?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | andzon0 -
How to transfer posts from a specific category into a subdomain
Hi Guys, Is there a way in Wordpress to transfer or redirect a category and all posts under it into a sub-domain? Thanks in advance..
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Trigun0 -
Doorway Page? or just a flawed idea?
I have a website which is on a .co.uk TLD and is primarily focused to the UK. Understandably I get very little in the way on US traffic, even though a lot of the content is applicable to the UK or US and could be made more so with a little tinkering. The domain has some age to it and ranks quite well for a variety of keywords and phrases, so it seems sensible to keep the site on this domain. The .com version of the domain is no longer available, and the current owner does not seem inclined to sell it to me. So, I am considering registering a very similar .com domain and simply using it to drive some traffic to the .co.uk site. To do this, I would have the same category pages and the same (or similar) list of links to the various pages in those categories. But instead instead of linking to a page on the new .com, it would take visitors to the existing page on the .co.uk. I would make this transparent to visitors ("Take a look at these pages on our sister site bluewidgets.co.uk") and the .com would have some unique content of its own. Would this be considered some kind of Doorway site/page (content rich doorway), or is it simply bad idea which is unlikely to drive any traffic?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Jingo010