Should I use 301 redirection to reduce soft 404 errors

11 years ago

You're right. Returning an error page without a proper HTTP header is a bad idea, and you should not cover for that with redirections. If your server or CMS is that broken fixing it would be the right way to go.

It's totally impossible to say how you should proceed because there's so much popular HTTP server software and CMSes around.

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yukon

Banned 11 years ago

This thread doesn't even make sense.

The whole point of a 301 is to prevent a 404.

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nettiapina 11 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

The whole point of a 301 is to prevent a 404.

Well, sometimes returning a 404 is a good thing.

I have a feeling that OP doesn't really understand what Google means by "soft 404 error".

Maybe somebody has been creating "error pages" for content that was deleted, or something equally weird.
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paulgl

11 years ago

You can't prevent 404 errors. Period. End of story.

Errors are errors. A soft 404 error, I presume, would be to
have a custom 404 error page, and NOT zap them to
some unexpected page without an explanation.

But you can't prevent 404 errors.

If you mean for pages that should be there, well, that's your
problem.

If you get a 404 error, a 404 error is logged. Even if you
have a custom 404 page, or redirect(not 301) your 404 page.

Doing a 301 for every page that gets a 404 error would be silly.
You would be caught in a never ending trap.

Paul

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yukon

Banned 11 years ago

This thread is straight out of the Twilight Zone.

Originally Posted by nettiapina

Well, sometimes returning a 404 is a good thing.

I have a feeling that OP doesn't really understand what Google means by "soft 404 error".

Maybe somebody has been creating "error pages" for content that was deleted, or something equally weird.

That's beyond crazy.

A 404 is a %$#^ up URL so it's never going to be a good thing.

Originally Posted by paulgl

You can't prevent 404 errors. Period. End of story.

Errors are errors. A soft 404 error, I presume, would be to
have a custom 404 error page, and NOT zap them to
some unexpected page without an explanation.

But you can't prevent 404 errors.

If you mean for pages that should be there, well, that's your
problem.

If you get a 404 error, a 404 error is logged. Even if you
have a custom 404 page, or redirect(not 301) your 404 page.

Doing a 301 for every page that gets a 404 error would be silly.
You would be caught in a never ending trap.

Paul

It's not complicated, a single line of code that will catch all existing/future 404s & redirect to a live webpage. Done.

[edit]
Never mind, I see India is hitting the SEO forum with a bunch of junk threads.

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nettiapina

11 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

That's beyond crazy.

A 404 is a %$#^ up URL so it's never going to be a good thing.

If the page is delirately deleted and there's no obvious page to redirect to returning a proper 404 is the right way to go. It's somewhat crazy to suggest that 301 is something that you should automatically use as a replacement.

I'd agree that if your page has a lot of backlinks you should either not delete it, or you really should have a replacement at hand.

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yukon

Banned 11 years ago

Originally Posted by nettiapina

If the page is delirately deleted and there's no obvious page to redirect to returning a proper 404 is the right way to go. It's somewhat crazy to suggest that 301 is something that you should automatically use as a replacement.

I'd agree that if your page has a lot of backlinks you should either not delete it, or you really should have a replacement at hand.

There is no such thing as a proper 404, a 404 page is a trash can.

It doesn't make sense to force traffic to look at a useless 404 page let alone knowing it will never be indexed or ranked by search engines.

Whoever invented 404s is an idiot.

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nettiapina 11 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

There is no such thing as a proper 404, a 404 page is a trash can.

I've made enough references to what I call a proper 404, and it has nothing to do with your little "hey, lets redirect everything" trick. A proper not found returns the HTTP 404 header just as a proper redirect should return 3xx in the header.

On the other hand, a "soft 404" seems to be something that isn't a proper error page, but just a content that says error. Or something. I have no idea why anyone would have this kind of pages with modern CMSes and server software. It takes effort to break core functionality this badly.

Originally Posted by yukon

It doesn't make sense to force traffic to look at a useless 404 page let alone knowing it will never be indexed or ranked by search engines.

I've got no idea what you're raving and ranting about. I said about the same above, did I not? If your page has backlinks, you don't just delete it (although in real world you sometimes have to). And no, I don't see mass redirect as a silver bullet of any sort.

So apparently not everyone agrees with your chosen trick, and to you that's just madness a la Twilight Zone? Well, from my perspective this hyperbole is getting so thick that it's soon reaching the level of "tripping balls".
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VimalRai

11 years ago

301 Redirect is lifesaver for you if you post moves from one url to other one domain to other. You retain upto 90% link juice of that page. 404 does not gives you any juice

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bryan2015

11 years ago

There is not such exact method for this problem dear.

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MikeFriedman

11 years ago

I could see a good use for 404s. If someone was typing in a url directly, and mis-typed it, I would not want them just redirected to a home page. I would want them to see an error page acknowledging the error.

Just doing a auto redirect to a home page or any other page could be confusing to them. Imagine they hit the home page. They are probably thinking, "How did I end up here?" So they start typing the URL again. This time their browser autofills as they are typing with the same URL they just entered. They do not notice the error and just select the autofill. Again, redirected to the home page. Now they are really confused with what is going on.

Situation like that, I think 404s are a good thing.

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Should I use 301 redirection to reduce soft 404 errors

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