SEO: 301 better than a 404

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alex.barylski
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SEO: 301 better than a 404

Post by alex.barylski »

I have some antiquated pages which no longer exist...Google somehow picked them (they were only on my website for like 30 minutes) and now because they are gone and I am returning 404 errors my SEO has tanked on me.

Is it better to 301 redirect to the homepage? How do I drop a web page and notify Google to remove it from their listings and more importantly start focusing on my existing web pages?
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pickle
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Re: SEO: 301 better than a 404

Post by pickle »

Give them a sitemap
Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.
alex.barylski
DevNet Evangelist
Posts: 6267
Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:00 pm
Location: Winnipeg

Re: SEO: 301 better than a 404

Post by alex.barylski »

ahh yes...forgot about that one...

Thanks i'll try it. :)
malcolmboston
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Re: SEO: 301 better than a 404

Post by malcolmboston »

301's are the way to go in terms of SEO and is very useful.

for example google see's that most sites have 2 home pages: http://www.example.com/ and http://www.example.com/index.html

you are actually being penalised by google for duplicate content, if you do a 301 from index.html to the domain name, all link juice will go with the redirect and you will no longer have a duplicate home page in the eyes of google.

I would say it is infinitely better than a 404 which serves no other purpose but to annoy potential customers.
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