Redirect for Soft 404 or 404?
-
I have a client site that displays properties from the MLS. Once these properties sell they're removed from the MLS and they stop showing up on her site. This would result in a 404 error, but right now any property that's not being found is being 301 redirected back to the property page. I see how this makes sense for a user, but Google is saying there's an increase in Soft 404 errors and I've read that this could negatively affect organic traffic.
Should I keep the redirect for removed properties or should I have it serve a 404 with a message that the house you're looking for may have sold and link to the property page? Is it better to have Soft 404 errors or 404 errors?
-
That's a good point about keeping the page indexed if it's being 301 redirected. There are approximately 900 properties listed with maybe 50-100 leaving the site each month. Would it be best to give a 410 HTTP response code? There won't be a lot of direct traffic to these pages, the main issue is with how Google sees the page. Users will search for it while it's listed but we're not talking about a large amount of traffic.
-
I would say it depends on the size of the site, if it's a large site, you can be wasting Google's crawl capacity by having it spend time following 301 redirects from nonexistent pages.
Google does a pretty good job explaining the soft 404 conundrum:
Returning a code other than 404 or 410 for a non-existent page (or redirecting users to another page, such as the homepage, instead of returning a 404) can be problematic. Firstly, it tells search engines that there’s a real page at that URL. As a result, that URL may be crawled and its content indexed. Because of the time Googlebot spends on non-existent pages, your unique URLs may not be discovered as quickly or visited as frequently and your site’s crawl coverage may be impacted (also, you probably don’t want your site to rank well for the search query [File not found]).
We recommend that you always return a 404 (Not found) or a 410 (Gone) response code in response to a request for a non-existing page. You can improve the user experience by configuring your site to display a custom 404 page when returning a 404 response code. For example, you could create a page containing a list of your most popular pages, or a link to your home page, or a feedback link. But it’s important to remember that it’s not enough to just create a page that displays a 404 message. You also need to return the correct 404 or 410 HTTP response code.
Here's the thing, if you keep it as a 301 redirect from the old listing page to the property overview page, that old listing page will stay in the search index longer since you're not showing a true 404 response code. So if people are in the search results and click on that listing there's two ways of looking at it: if they click on the non-existent listing, well at least you'll still be driving a little bit of traffic to your site and hope they look at other properties. On the flip side it's a poor user experience since they were expecting to see that property page when they clicked from the search results, but instead are just being led to another page.
I think the decision lies in the size of the site. If it's a huge site, let them hard 404 and follow the best practices. If it's a small site and you're hoping people stick around serendipitously, you can probably keep doing what you're doing.
-
Hi there.
I think that from Google bots' point of view, it doesn't matter soft 404 or "hard" 404. However, as you said to user it would be better to have soft 404s. So, my suggestion would be keep soft 404s and fix them properly when found.
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
-
404s on subfolder - how to redirect?
Hi all,
Technical SEO | | MFSMarketing
we have a lot of 404s to subfolders. Eg
www.website.com/blog-post-title/imagename/
www.website.com/blog-post-title/author/ We don't have these subfolders or blog posts anymore.
How do i redirect them? These links (404s) don't seem to have any value or backlinks. Thanks,
Stef0 -
How do you fix redirect chains and temporary redirects?
Hi, I have a lot of issues popping up with temporary redirects and redirect chains. I'm still confused as to what exactly redirect chains are and I don't know how to find where the "chains" are or how to fix them. I'm having two issues mainly:1. Temporary RedirectsI have around 100 pages on our www.twowayradiosfor.com website that are being flagged as temporary redirects. All of them have one thing in common: they are review pages (basically, when a customer clicks on the Review button to review a certain product, they are redirected to a review page for that product).URL Example: https://www.twowayradiosfor.com/reviewhelpful.asp?ProductCode=CLS1410-COMBO&ID=44&yes=noI went into our website and set any URL containing the following as noindex:/review.aspWill that fix the issue? If yes, will I also need to do that for any URL containing /reviewhelpful.asp?2. Redirect ChainsIt seems like basically every product page on my website has this issue (over 100 pages). Here's an example of one:https://www.twowayradiosfor.com/Motorola-CLS1110-p/cls1110.htmI don't see any broken links on this page or links that redirect to another page that redirects, etc. What is causing this? Is it something on my header bar that is redirecting (since that header bar appears on every page, maybe that is why this issue shows up on a lot of pages)?I am new to Moz and still trying to figure this stuff out. I really appreciate any help. Thanks, Sawyer
Technical SEO | | AllChargedUp0 -
Importance of 301 Redirects
Hello, I have been brought in at the last minute to consult for an e-commerce client who is about to relaunch their website. The site currently receives 8000 visits a month, 3100 of which are from organic search. They have a few thousand product pages. The web development firm they are using is changing all of the old product page urls and using 'search engine friendly' urls for the new site, which is expected to launch in a few weeks. However, they did not/are not planning on including 301 redirects from the old URLs. Other than simply stating 'this will be bad for your SEO', what would be a correct way of explaining to the client how much of a problem it will be if their new site launches without 301s. For example, is this a big enough issue to delay the launch of the site / get in a contract dispute with the web developer?
Technical SEO | | stageagent0 -
Magento Redirect Loop
On my clients site I changed the URL structure for products. First they had a trailing slash: http://www.wellamy.com/market/food/oklahoma-relief-effort/healthy-snacks/caramel-apple-chewy-snack-bars/ I changed it to end in .html http://www.wellamy.com/market/food/oklahoma-relief-effort/healthy-snacks/caramel-apple-chewy-snack-bars.html Now rather than redirecting properly, it causes a redirect loop. Any idea how I can fix this?
Technical SEO | | Imajery0 -
How to write 301 redirects in WordPress
I've successfully migrated new site to new domain (www.cmsearchmarketing.com) But I cannot get 301 redirects for pages and blog posts to redirect from the old domain (www.creativemindsearchmarketing.com). And it's my understanding I need to do a 301 for each page to maintain SEO. Here's what I've tried: RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^p=975$RewriteRule ^index.php$ http://www.cmsearchmarketing.com/top-5-questions-to-ask-an-seo-firm-before-signing-up/? [R=301,L] BEGIN WordPress<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine OnRewriteBase /RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-fRewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-dRewriteRule . /index.php [L]</ifmodule># END WordPress #AND ALSO# Use PHP5 Single php.ini as defaultAddHandler application/x-httpd-php5s .php BEGIN WordPress<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine OnRewriteBase /RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-fRewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-dRewriteRule . /index.php [L]</ifmodule># END WordPress redirect 301 /top-5-questions-to-ask-an-seo-firm-before-signing-up http://www.cmsearchmarketing.com/top-5-questions-to-ask-an-seo-firm-before-signing-up/ Any suggestions would be appreciated. _Cindy P.S. Maybe some other issues are in the way: --Old site is WP-Remix theme no longer supported, and latest WP version is 2.9.1 -- Old domain (www.creativemindsearchmarketing.com) is the primary account on BlueHost …and the new domain (www.cmsearchmarketing.com) is an addon, so the new domain's directory is within root of old domain. -- in root domain of old site there are other "handler files" that also have base file rewrites, if this is an issue: name of this file in root directory is:
Technical SEO | | CeCeBar
.htaccess.addHandlerBak -FrontPage- <limit get="" post="">order deny,allowdeny from allallow from all</limit><limit put="" delete="">order deny,allowdeny from all</limit>AuthUserFile /home/creatjo7/public_html/_vti_pvt/service.pwdAuthGroupFile /home/creatjo7/public_html/_vti_pvt/service.grp# BEGIN WordPress<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine OnRewriteBase /RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-fRewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-dRewriteRule . /index.php [L]</ifmodule> END WordPressAuthName creativemindsearchmarketing.comIndexIgnore .htaccess /.?? *~ *# /HEADER /README /_vti0 -
301 Redirect
Need a little bit of help on this one. I have a product page which actually has 3 products on the page in question: www.example.com/products I thought it would be best for each product to have a page on its own: www.example.com/product-1 www.example.com/product-2 www.example.com/product-3 however my question is: The page with the 3 products www.example.com/products where should the 301 go to? Can you do a 301 to all the new product pages? Hope that makes sense Kind Regards,
Technical SEO | | Paul780 -
Question concerning a 302 Redirect
Hi! I've already done some research on redirects, but I still have a question concerning a 302 redirect implemented at the homepage of a website. The Website www.domainA.com has a 302 redirect to www.domainA.com/content/.... Also all subsequent pages have the /content/ directory in their URLs: e.g domainA.com/content/products First thing I was wondering about, was the use of a redirect to a new site using an additional directory /content/... Why would anyone do this? Would it be enough to replace the 302 with a 301 redirect, or would you recommend to change the entire structure and eliminate this /content/ directory? The most logical structure would be www.domainA.com/products/.., and not www.domainA.com/content/products, right? Second thing: Given that 302 means temporary redirect, what are the actual implications when redirecting from domainA.com to domainA.com/content? I've heard that 302 redirects don't pass linkjuice and are detrimental for the site's rankings... What are the actual implications concerning the example above (302 redirect from domainA.com to domainA.com/content ? Would be great to get some advice about the first problem and maybe some insights about the second one concerning 302s in general. Thanks in advance! Cheers, Chris
Technical SEO | | adwordize0 -
How to Redirect only specific pages to new domain
My HTACCESS FILE IS AS FOLLOWS: rewriteengine on
Technical SEO | | askthetrainer
rewritecond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mydomain.com$
rewriterule ^mydomain/(.*)$ "http://www.mydomain.com/$1" [R=301,L] #4d864805b49b5 I want to move ONLY specific pages from this domain to a new domain How do I edit my HTACCESS (which redirects http:// to www.) to move specific pages from old domain (which I have to delete) to new domain.... I.e. http://mydomaon.com/move.html needs to move to http://mynewdomain.com/move.html Where i can delete the original domains0