Old URLs that have 301s to 404s not being de-indexed.
-
We have a scenario on a domain that recently moved to enforcing SSL. If a page is requested over non-ssl (http) requests, the server automatically redirects to the SSL (https) URL using a good old fashioned 301. This is great except for any page that no longer exists, in which case you get a 301 going to a 404.
Here's what I mean.
Case 1 - Good page:
http://domain.com/goodpage -> 301 -> https://domain.com/goodpage -> 200
Case 2 - Bad page that no longer exists:
http://domain.com/badpage -> 301 -> https://domain.com/badpage -> 404
Google is correctly re-indexing all the "good" pages and just displaying search results going directly to the https version.
Google is stubbornly hanging on to all the "bad" pages and serving up the original URL (http://domain.com/badpage) unless we submit a removal request. But there are hundreds of these pages and this is starting to suck. Note: the load balancer does the SSL enforcement, not the CMS. So we can't detect a 404 and serve it up first. The CMS does the 404'ing.
Any ideas on the best way to approach this problem? Or any idea why Google is holding on to all the old "bad" pages that no longer exist, given that we've clearly indicated with 301s that no one is home at the old address?
-
I don't think 404 vs 410 is the answer here.The basis for this thought is the following:
========
"if we see a page and we get a 404, we are gonna protect that page for 24 hours in the crawling system, so we sort of wait and we say maybe that was a transient 404, maybe it really wasn’t intended to be a page not found.”
“If we see a 410, then the site crawling system says, OK we assume the webmasters knows what they’re doing because they went off the beaten path to deliberately say this page is gone,” he said. “So they immediately convert that 410 to an error, rather than protecting it for 24 hours."
========
I'm thinking the deeper issue is why the 301s are not being respected. If a link points to http://domain.com/badpage and we use a 301 to point to https://domain.com/badpage - shouldn't the crawler (Google or otherwise) respect the 301? Why still index and serve up a page that responds with the 301? To me, this is baffling. If we serve up a 404 or a 410 - either way we are saying "this page is gone" but we're still seeing the original http://domain.com/badpage in the index?
Does that make sense? Or is there more clarification required?
-
sym_admin is right--you'll want to find the source of those pages, as Google apparently is seeing them from somewhere and still requesting them. If there are links to those pages somewhere, you will need to remove them. Also, if you're able, I would change those URLs so that they serve up a "410 Gone" error, and not a 404.
-
Read these three, then do what you got to do...
https://www.searchcommander.com/how-to-bulk-remove-urls-google/
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/uYFJnsyiH8w
https://mza.bundledseo.com/community/q/404-redirects-to-the-homepage-is-this-good-bad-ugly
For proper removal, please ensure that there are no INTERNAL links anywhere on your website to 404 addresses, from sitemap, buttons, text, or images (the whole 9 yards).
Good luck!
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
-
I still see the old page in index
Hello, I have done a redirect and still see in google index my old page after 3 weeks. My new page is there also Is it normal that the old page isn't dropped for the index yet ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
URL in russian
Hi everyone, I am doing an audit of a site that currently have a lot of 500 errors due to the russian langage. Basically, all the url's look that way for every page in russian: http://www.exemple.com/ru-kg/pешения-для/food-packaging-machines/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | alexrbrg
http://www.exemple.com/ru-kg/pешения-для/wood-flour-solutions/
http://www.exemple.com/ru-kg/pешения-для/cellulose-solutions/ I am wondering if this error is really caused by the server or if Google have difficulty reading the russian langage in URL's. Is it better to have the URL's only in english ?0 -
URL Re-Writes & HTTPS: Link juice loss from 301s?
Our URLs are not following a lot of the best practices found here: http://moz.com/blog/11-best-practices-for-urls We have also been waiting to implement HTTPS. I think it might be time to take the plunge on re-writing the URLs and converting to a fully secure site, but I am concerned about ranking dips from the lost link juice from the 301s. Many of our URLs are very old, with a decent amount of quality links. Are we better off leaving as is or taking the plunge?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheDude0 -
How Long Does it Take for Rel Canonical to De-Index / Re-Index a Page?
Hi Mozzers, We have 2 e-commerce websites, Website A and Website B, sharing thousands of pages with duplicate product descriptions. Currently only the product pages on Website B are indexing, and we want Website A indexed instead. We added the rel canonical tag on each of Website B's product pages with a link towards the matching product on Page A. How long until Website B gets de-indexed and Website A gets indexed instead? Did we add the rel canonical tag correctly? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Travis-W0 -
Why are new pages not being indexed, and old pages (now in robots.txt) remain in the index?
I currently have a site that was recently restructured, causing much of its content to be reposted, creating new URL's for each page. To avoid duplicates, all of the existing pages were added to the robots file. That said, it has now been over a week - I know Google has recrawled the site - and when I search for term X, it is stil the old page that is ranking, with the new one nowhere to be seen. I'm assuming it's a cached version, but why are so many of the old pages still appearing in the index? Furthermore, all "tags" pages (it's a Q&A site, like this one) were also added to the robots a few months ago, yet I think they are all still appearing in the index. Anyone got any ideas about why this is happening, and how I can get my new pages indexed?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | corp08030 -
Why do old URL format are still being crawled by Rogerbot?
Hi, In the early days of my blog, I used permalinks with the following format: http://www.mysitesamp.com/2009/02/04/heidi-cortez-photo-shoot/ I then decided to change this format using .htaccess to this format: http://www.mysitesamp.com//heidi-cortez-photo-shoot/ My question is, why do rogerbot still crawls my old URL format since these urls' no longer exists in my website or blog.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Trigun0 -
Best way to de-index content from Google and not Bing?
We have a large quantity of URLs that we would like to de-index from Google (we are affected b Panda), but not Bing. What is the best way to go about doing this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
1 of the sites i work on keeps having its home page "de-indexed" by google every few months, I then apply for a review and they put it back up. But i have no idea why this keeps happening and its only the home page
1 of the sites i work on (www.eva-alexander.com) keeps having its home page "de-indexed" by google every few months, I then apply for a review and they put it back up. But i have no idea why this keeps happening and its only the home page I have no idea why and have never experienced this before
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GMD10