Morally Right vs Strategic 404 Question
-
Hey,
I bought my domain name not even thinking of the backlink profile advantages. However, now I have about 140 links back to my site delivering 404 errors. Some with DA only in the teens, but some more.
What would you consider the right way to go about this? Should I redirect them to my homepage? Should I try to disavow them? Any thoughts are welcome.
-
You will see no benefit from mass-301 redirects to the home page, and it might even hurt. The only way to get value is if you redirect it to identical or similar content. I wouldn't even count on that adding value or traffic now that the site has changed hands and content has been gone for a while.
Still, if you can recover (and have the right to use) the old content, it might be worth 301 redirecting - or better yet, putting on the same URL so no redirects are necessary. Only do this if the content was good and the links were quality links. Otherwise let them 404.
If you can't put up the same or similar content, don't bother. Focus on building the site naturally.
-
Hi Michael,
Redirect them to the homepage, in this case it doesn't make sense to disavow them as they probably won't hurt you because of the quality but more that they might be sending traffic to pages that don't exist. Forcing users to a page that they can do something on would be the most valuable thing.
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
-
Backlinking question
Hello everyone! I currently work for a software company that sell's CRM software for product sellers and one of our options along with this service is a website builder option that can provide the client with a website with several different templates to choose from. Currently, we have over 500 clients using these website templates and I noticed that they are all under the same IP address. My question is, in terms of a backlinking effort, would it be beneficial if we included a link to our company's website on the footer on each of these templates? Example could be: Powered by: (company's name) and have the name a link to our site. I'm worried that this could be seen negatively by Google if we dofollowed these links or the fact that they are all under the same IP. Any suggestions would be appreciated! Thanks
Link Building | | KathleenDC0 -
Dofollow VS noFollow
HI What do you think about nofollow links, are they still give rank for domains. DJ
Link Building | | capitanhajs0 -
Google+ Account for Authorship: Personal vs. Corporate Account
Hi guys, We are currently setting up Google+ accounts for our website www.troteclaser.com. We'd like to use them to indicate authorship of our content. As we provide content in 10 different countries, we have to set up a Google+ account for every office location. Here my questions: Do we have to set up two separate accounts - one for the authorship (for the person who wrote the texts) and another one for our office location (to link with Google places)? Or would a single (unpersonal) corporate account do the job, too? What's your experience with this? Thomas
Link Building | | Troteclaser1 -
Google Panda Update question
Since the Panda update from December 21st, 2012, some of the keywords I used to rank for are now gone beyond page 20. What I don't get is that the websites that are now ranking are definitely full of crap and they have tons of unnatural links pointing to them. I've analysed their backlink profiles and most of them have only exact keyword match anchors pointing to them. So what's going on? Is buying tons of crappy links still a valid tactic? I know it is not but how come thoses sites outrank me? I mean it happened to LOTS of my keywords. I don't get it...
Link Building | | sbrault740 -
Link credit www vs non-www?
I have noticed that when I run the open explorer on my website that I get a different list of linking domains depending on if the back link used www or not. I always ask and specify to use the non-www but many people do not pay a lot of attention to that? I have set up 301 from www to the non-www as the non-www is my primary URL. How do i get credits for the 50+ that are pointing to the www?
Link Building | | jgmayes0 -
Search volume on google.no vs google.com for keyword
Anyone know if there is a way to find out search volume for a keyword on google.com vd for instance in our case google.no ? The reason i am asking is that i am ranking 17 on google.com vs 1 on google.no . how do i go about to increase .com ranking ?
Link Building | | danlae0 -
Link building for rankings VS Link building for relationships
A Big Shout To Everyone -- Good Morning and What's Up 🙂 As I read today through seomoz professional guide to link building and the section why link building matters and in addition to this a newsletter I received today that changed my whole thinking towards link building for rankings vs for relationships. It is already happening on social networks if you are active there, but what about on your website. What are your thoughts on the following ? Google's job is provide the most relevant results to surfers online, and looking the link profile of a site & the page itself is the key to determining which page to serve on plate to the surfers link query ! Webmasters Site Objective:
Link Building | | helpwanted
I think that we as webmasters have to ask ourselves what do we want to achieve with link building. To get quick traffic or build slow authority links, high rankings, lead generation, sales & other things here I may be missing etcccc Other Objective Networking & Relationship Building Alliances : What I discovered today is that building links for 1st page rankings are great and will provide me with steady traffic, but not all of it is targeted traffic, but what else can I do to bring targeted traffic and at the same time try to build alliances with other related non competing business owners online. The idea... is to apply old school networking / relationship building alliances to get targeted traffic to my site that can actually benefit from my services. How Do We Achieve This I become a editor for approving resource links for me site, only the best will be placed on my site as a resource. Build a valuable tightly themed categorized resource section with related non competing resources that can help my sites visitors find what they are looking for, send visitors to non competing resources that may purchase their services which helps me build a relationship with them, and may can with rankings as well, provided I am selective with my qualification process. Questions & Concerns Below : What should I be thinking about when creating a resource categorized links page How many outgoing do follow links should I allow from this links partner page How will this links resource page affect my own SE 1st Page Rankings and is it worth it based on getting targeted traffic Any pros / cons I may be missing here0 -
Natural vs UnNatural Links: How to Understand It?
Today, I was reading one help article on Google webmaster tools help regarding Google friendly sites. I found that, Natural links can give us more benefits compare to Unnatural links. So, I have search on Google regarding Natural vs Unnatural links and come to know about great video. But, I am still confuse with exact understanding. I am trying to create external links on different websites. So, is it natural or not? How can I justify value of external website before creating link over there.
Link Building | | CommercePundit0