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Here is Something that SUCKS!

by RedWaterDub
7 replies
Google....

Yep.. check this out, you may find this interesting or even helpful, something to be aware of at least.

My site has been sitewise penalized for too many 404 errors. I know some people will disagree, but I have lost serps for every target kw since the errors were first noticed. from first page to 30th etc.... and I have not done anything else seo wise to trigger this.. I am pretty sure of that.

This is what happened.

One or two months ago, I deleted a mobile site compatability plugin from my wordpress admin effectively deleting hundreds of pages that this plugin had created. I also deleted all my tags, this also effectively deleted hundreds of pages (as each tag creates its own page in wp). I also deleted many of my categories and replaced with more relevant ones, this also deleted pages for the same reason..
...then a week or so later in my google webmaster tools I started getting URL error notices with 404s starting to appear... ended up with over 2700 404 pages... so I deleted them marking them as fixed.. but a few days later they reappeared...so I thought, what the hell, a bit weird but not to worry as they were legit 404s and google would eventually drop them from the index, no harm done right?.. Not to be... another week or so and I started noticing my serps dropping.. and as days went by they dropped more and more... I keep going back to GWTs and deleting them and they keep coming back....Also all the links google says that point to my 404 pages are from other 404 pages from my own site.. or if the pages are good, contrary to what G says, the links simply do not exist.

There NO broken links on my site. (well certainly not many anyway)

I have read a ton of stuff about this recently and it seems a real thing that google will penalize a site with too many 404s as this indicates broken links and thus unreliable, untrustworthy site, its a Panda thing....and there seems to be a lot of differing speculation on how to fix it from .htaccess codes, permalinks, 301 redirects, robots.txt adjustments, google index removal requests and the main consensus "just leave it"......

So.. wtf! I have done nothing wrong bar delete my own pages... everything else that happened after that was Googles doing. Now I'm losing serps by the day.. and its not fair... cry..

So do you think this SUCKS? or have I missed something here? I know one thing.. I will be very careful of the pages and posts I create from now on and even more careful which ones I get rid of.

I think I will be going with the "request google to remove pages from the index" option.... but I'm still pondering on that as some people say DO NOT DO THAT... so I'm a bit stuck to be honest.

Has anyone come across this before and actually KNOW how to deal with it?
I would be most grateful for your help.

THANKS
#sucks
  • Profile picture of the author SteveSRS
    check google webmaster or your server logs for most common 404 errors,
    then find the best content you have for what people would expect as content and use htaccess to 301 them to your content..

    perhaps you changed some stuff on your sites and many other sites link to your old pages creating 404. That means you are not 'penalized' but you just lost many incoming links because you changed your website and thus your ranking is lower. 404's don't count.. pretty logical if you ask me... this is also a reason your 404 page should always have content btw.
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  • Profile picture of the author azmanar
    Hi,

    First of all, you can do something about the 404.

    Customise your 404.

    Place your Site Map as the content inside it.

    Make it nice and have some nice words in it.

    The second step is to use either 301 or htaccess for pages that are no longer there.

    I don't know the reason why people stopped you from removing pages from google index. I would, if it is causing SERPs to fall deeper.
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  • Profile picture of the author thebitbotdotcom
    Set up your 404.php as a php-based 301 redirect to your homepage.
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  • Profile picture of the author contentwriting360
    Banned
    Hello RedWaterDub,

    Is your website WordPress-based? If it is, there's a WP plugin that checks broken links.

    Here's the link: WordPress › Broken Link Checker « WordPress Plugins

    Disclaimer: We are not affiliates or associated to the owner of this plugin.


    I hope this helps.
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    • Profile picture of the author RedWaterDub
      Thanks for your help guys,

      Yes this is a wordpress site and I already have a nice 404 page with content and the categories list.
      I am already using the broken link checker and there are no broken links on my site.
      Nobody else is linking to these 404 pages as they were my tags pages and redirect for mobile pages.. all the links came from my own site but those links no longer exist even tho G still thinks they do.
      And I don't want to 301 redirect the 404 pages as that would look spammy if 2700 pages were suddenly redirected to my home page. And if I redirected each one to a similar content existing page.. that would take me forever with so many of them..
      why cant they just disappear from the index.. they are no use to anyone. there are no outside links to them.. it just seems wrong to me.

      btw, the link below is not the site i am referencing
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  • Profile picture of the author contentwriting360
    Banned
    Hello RedWaterDub,

    I'm hoping that one of our programmers from the Warriors For Hire thread will join us in this discuss. They're more equipped to tackle this coding/programming-related thread. Let me ask our partners if they have an answer to this. I'll get back to you as soon as I have the answers from them.
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  • Profile picture of the author SteveSRS
    I'm a programmer and you have to do as I told you..well.. you don't HAVE to but still the best solution of all posted here so far.

    the advise of redirecting all with 301 to your homepage is one of the MOST stupid things you can do. Find compatible content for the 404 links on your site and REDIRECT them there.. if you don't have it just leave the 404 but make sure it is a 404 page with some real content that helps people move on on your website.

    there is nothing more you CAN do.. its just waiting until google caches up
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