SEO & dead links
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- ladbroke
- Sr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 166
- Thanks: 4
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Hi, Just looking for some opinions. I launched a site about 6 weeks ago, and there are now lots of dead links within Google relating to the old content that used to be on that domain. If they're clicked on they still end up at the new site, but via the error 404 page. Not ideal. Is there a way to hasten the removal of these, or do I just sit it out and let google figure out that these are dead links?
Part of me thinks this is positive, as my new content is indexed, and people get to the site via the old links too, but guess it looks un-professional and is off putting if visitors get to the 404 page. They might just look elsewhere.
The domain was added for Google to crawl when the site was launched, so don't want to submit it again for fear of upsetting Google with duplicate requests to crawl the site!
I've attached a screenshot from Google Webmaster tools.
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- Cliff Pfeifer
- Preeminent Rocketeer
- Posts: 8444
- Thanks: 20
- Website Developer
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If you're using Joomla - this might help:
docs.joomla.org/Help16:Components_Redirect_Manager - The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer.
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- Cliff Pfeifer
- Preeminent Rocketeer
- Posts: 8444
- Thanks: 20
- Website Developer
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You might want to see if they have any tips, or just Google for a solution that will work for you.
It's fairly common for this to happen when changing things around on your site - it goes away on it's own after awhile. The quick solution is usually placing redirects in your htaccess file - you have to let the search engines know they are dead links by setting them as 301 redirects - or another solution is to just have your 404 page redirect to your home page. That won't work for everyone, but it's better than an error page. - The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer.
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- Hillsgrad
- Newbie
- Posts: 15
- Thanks: 0
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Just have a useful 404 page such as what I did for my store:
www.princessly.com/not-existing-page/
People will surely find their way around the site with a well designed 404 page. Doesn't have to be good looking but it needs to have elements that the visitors are interested in in the first place, such as in my case, wedding dresses, lots of them on the 404 page because they are interested in them before they start. We add and remove bridal items on a daily basis.
Get pictures there, and huge links. From my experience, people don't have the patience to type in a search on the 404 page, though many experts say a search bar on 404 page helps.
And no need to worry about Google as long as you are doing the right / good thing. It is too sophisticated for us mortals to ponder about.
- Wait; soon like these . Thou too shalt rest.
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- Shelbourne
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 21
- Thanks: 0
- Internet marketing consultant and owner of small web firm in Ohio; in-house business development at mid-sized call center outsourcing company in Columbus.
- If you can redirect those pages to new ones, or just back to the homepage, there's a "mark as fixed" button in webmaster tools that will alert Google that the issue has been resolved.
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