How long does it take for Google to update their index?

16 replies
  • SEO
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Yesterday evening i worked on navigation for my Shopify account. I changed links, pages and made sure there where no 404's.

However, when I google and I find our page and click on it, I still get a 404.

This worries me.

According to Screaming Frog, I don't have 404's.

Only 302's

Can I do something with Google Search Console to fix this asap?

Thank you

(my questions are becoming more technical. Woop Woop! )
#google #index #long #update
  • Profile picture of the author davidweb09
    It will take some time to take effect after 4-5 Google indexing.
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  • Profile picture of the author AndresNWD
    If you get a 404 your page doesn't exist, you did something wrong with your redirections. It hasn't anything to be with Google.
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    • Profile picture of the author IamJeez
      Originally Posted by AndresNWD View Post

      If you get a 404 your page doesn't exist, you did something wrong with your redirections. It hasn't anything to be with Google.
      When I run Screaming Frog, I get no 404's

      Also, Shopify has a redirect integrated in their backend system. Which is actually unfortunate, I never get the chance to really become a more technical SEO
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      • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
        Originally Posted by IamJeez View Post

        When I run Screaming Frog, I get no 404's

        Also, Shopify has a redirect integrated in their backend system. Which is actually unfortunate, I never get the chance to really become a more technical SEO
        Just because Screaming Frog says there are no 404's does not mean there are no 404's.

        If you are navigating to a page and getting a 404 error, that means you have a 404 error. It has nothing to do with Google. It means you are trying to reach a URL that does not exist.

        Now it is possible that you intentionally got rid of that page and it is still in the Google index. Again though, the error is on your site.

        You can remove a URL from the index in Webmaster Tools.
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        • Profile picture of the author IamJeez
          Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

          Just because Screaming Frog says there are no 404's does not mean there are no 404's.

          If you are navigating to a page and getting a 404 error, that means you have a 404 error. It has nothing to do with Google. It means you are trying to reach a URL that does not exist.

          Now it is possible that you intentionally got rid of that page and it is still in the Google index. Again though, the error is on your site.

          You can remove a URL from the index in Webmaster Tools.
          I believe it's on my side. And I need to fix it.

          However, with shopify, when deleting a page.. There should be a redirect done. Like most CMS systems.

          With Webmaster tools I can delete the link?
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          • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
            Originally Posted by IamJeez View Post

            I believe it's on my side. And I need to fix it.

            However, with shopify, when deleting a page.. There should be a redirect done. Like most CMS systems.

            With Webmaster tools I can delete the link?
            With Webmaster Tools you can request a URL be removed from Google's index.

            Now if there are still links on your site leading to the page, you still have a 404 issue that needs to be fixed. Webmaster Tools will not help you with that.

            And I do not think that any CMS system automatically creates redirects when you delete a page. I certainly would not want that as a feature either.
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            • Profile picture of the author IamJeez
              Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

              With Webmaster Tools you can request a URL be removed from Google's index.

              Now if there are still links on your site leading to the page, you still have a 404 issue that needs to be fixed. Webmaster Tools will not help you with that.

              And I do not think that any CMS system automatically creates redirects when you delete a page. I certainly would not want that as a feature either.
              Is there a method to spot the internal links to a certain page?
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            • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
              Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

              And I do not think that any CMS system automatically creates redirects when you delete a page. I certainly would not want that as a feature either.
              Unfortunately something like this exist in WordPress. If a page is not found, the system is prone to redirect to anything that starts with the same string of letters. It's fine to redirect if the user renames a page, but this goes too far.
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              • Profile picture of the author IamJeez
                Originally Posted by nettiapina View Post

                Unfortunately something like this exist in WordPress. If a page is not found, the system is prone to redirect to anything that starts with the same string of letters. It's fine to redirect if the user renames a page, but this goes too far.
                Shopify did the following.

                There is an option to make your page SEO friendly

                It makes you able to 'change' the link name behind www.yourdomain.com/ ...

                If you change that 3 times. You have created 3 links.

                If you then delete that page.. You have a mess.

                So now I have to look everything up and make redirects to the pages that are actually on the website.

                I guess as SEO you are also some sort of "Exterminator" ;-)
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                • Profile picture of the author paulgl
                  You cannot fix 404 errors, as you can't fix people or the internet.

                  I would never have a 404 error redirect. It's a bad practice to
                  send people to a page that they did not expect, especially with
                  no explanation. A much better way, is to create a custom 404
                  error page. One that says, We're sorry, that page no longer
                  exists, but we have current ones that may be what you are looking
                  for. Then give a bunch of links to articles, or, just a link to get to
                  the main page. Make the page look exactly like it's a regular
                  webpage on your site.

                  Google can update all they want. Problem is, if you are using some
                  CMS, google can index a whole host of things
                  that may exist for a second, creating a gaggle of urls that would
                  get a 404 error.

                  If your homepage is giving a 404 error, then you have a problem.
                  Perhaps your index hierarchy is not correct. Most servers look for
                  an index.php first, index.html, etc. If your server is set to only
                  look for one or the other, and they don't exist, then you're going
                  to your domain would give a 404 error.

                  That's bad. Very bad. Because a 404 error like that and google, would
                  mean eventually the "domain" could/would drop out of the index.

                  Redirecting a 404 error to your homepage would never fix that.
                  A redirect does not fix errors, nor stop them from being logged.

                  Paul
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                  • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
                    Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

                    I would never have a 404 error redirect. It's a bad practice to
                    send people to a page that they did not expect, especially with
                    no explanation.
                    This is a good point. It's also not much of a SEO consideration unless there's a ton of backlinks pointing to this 404'd address.

                    Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

                    If your homepage is giving a 404 error, then you have a problem.
                    Perhaps your index hierarchy is not correct. Most servers look for
                    an index.php first, index.html, etc. If your server is set to only
                    look for one or the other, and they don't exist, then you're going
                    to your domain would give a 404 error.
                    Modern LAMP-based CMSes often override this in order to use search engine friendly URLs. They "rewrite" the addresses in the background, which can potentially lead to other issues. Especially if you're messing with redirections.
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  • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
    Originally Posted by IamJeez View Post

    According to Screaming Frog, I don't have 404's.
    Screaming Frog can only tell you if you've got non-working links on your own site (or the site that you're running it on), not if they're on someone else's web property.

    If you know the 404 address, just do a 301 redirect to a page that matches the contents. Google will update their index probably in a few days when they get the change to crawl the page again. As far as I know they might not remove every broken link on the first crawl, probably because a broken link might also be a random error.
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    Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
    Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.

    What's your excuse?
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  • Profile picture of the author IamJeez
    I found all 404's trough site:www.yourdomain.com

    Now I am going to redirect those 404's to the right pages

    Is that the way to go?
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by IamJeez View Post

      I found all 404's trough site:www.yourdomain.com

      Now I am going to redirect those 404's to the right pages

      Is that the way to go?
      If there is a new corresponding page to those, then yes redirect them to the new pages. If it is stuff that is just deprecated (products you no longer sell, for example), I would go into WMT and just remove them from the index. I would not worry so much about a redirect unless they had really good links pointing to them.
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  • Profile picture of the author IamJeez
    Yes, there is a corresponding page to those. I wonder why this happened.

    It's a totally new site, so maybe with every small update, I created something
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  • Profile picture of the author WareTime
    Google will drop those 404's soon enough. If you can't wait, do what Mike said and tell Google to drop them via WMT.

    The only time I redirect is if a site still has the resource but the url changed. Some things are 404 and should stay that way.

    Look at you access logs and see if anyone but you has been hitting those 404's. Let that be your guide on whether or not you take the time to use WMT to drop the page.

    BTW, make sure the pages that are 404 are really throwing a 404 and not a quasi 404 as some CMS tend to do. I've seen 200's that present the text of a 404. If that's the case, they aren't leaving Google anytime soon.
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