Entries from Search Engine Roundtable tagged with '404'

Historically, Google treated the 404 (page not found) and 410 (gone) server header page status codes as the same. Both meant, the page no longer exists. Well, that has all changed now. Google is now treating the 410 as "more...

Posted on October 27, 2009 9:37 AM

In August 2008, Google released what was called the enhanced 404 widget that allowed webmasters to easily create custom 404 pages. In fact, we still have a sample of this in action at advertize.html. But for some reason, I think...

Posted on July 8, 2009 9:03 AM

There are way too many sites out there that have their "Page Not Found" web pages return a 200 header status code, instead of a 404 code or a 301. The issue with showing a 200 code to spiders or...

Posted on March 20, 2009 8:09 AM

Few noticed last week that Google seemed to have had a broken link on its homepage. The link "Advertising Programs" was bringing a 404, I believe: I, too, didn't notice, but DigitalPoint Forums members were not the only people who...

Posted on October 27, 2008 9:32 AM

A common issue for e-commerce sites is what to do when an item goes out of stock. Do you delete the page? Do you redirect the page somewhere else? Do you just tell the user the item is out of...

Posted on September 5, 2008 7:38 AM

Yesterday, we talked about the Google code to enhance the 404 experience. A number of issues were reported with the code in the Google Groups announcement thread, and Google has fortunately made tweaks to fix the issues. Google representative JohnMu...

Posted on August 21, 2008 9:49 AM

The Google Webmaster Central Blog has a post about new widgets that Google has created that allow you to "embed a widget in your 404 page that helps your visitors find what they're looking for by providing suggestions based on...

Posted on August 20, 2008 9:30 AM

There is a very large discussion at Sphinn around a Search Engine Journal post named How to Get Rid of Multiple Subpages & Not Get Penalized. The discussion is around the topics of using different techniques when removing or redirecting...

Posted on August 14, 2008 8:08 AM

Rae Hoffman wrote a post at Search Engine Land about the opportunities you have if one of the links you have points to a 404. You can create a relevant 301 redirect, a user-friendly 404 page, or a custom non-404...

Posted on June 26, 2008 10:38 AM

WebmasterWorld administrator tedster urges each and every webmaster to ensure that their 404 custom error page actually returns an appropriate 404 error code. He explains that he sees more 200 response codes than ever, lately, because custom 404 pages are...

Posted on April 14, 2008 10:07 AM

Colin Cochrane noticed that del.icio.us has blocked search engine spiders. He believes that it's not a simple robots.txt exclusion; instead, del.icio.us is serving 404 errors based on the User-Agent. Barry Welford confirmed this by changing the User-Agent himself. How did...

Posted on February 18, 2008 9:21 AM

There are reports that the new beta version of the Google Toolbar is acting a bit evil. Reports are that when you install the toolbar and surf to a 404 page, a page not found, Google will replace the 404...

Posted on February 12, 2008 7:04 AM

A Search Engine Watch Forums moderator asked why are Google's 404 Not Found pages so cold and unhelpful? For example, there is no page on the Google domain over here so Google returns a header status of 404, to tell...

Posted on January 30, 2008 7:10 AM

Earlier this week, we reported that Ask.com Crawler Inserting Url-Encoded Spaces in URLs Causing 404 Errors. In short, Ask.com's crawlers were crawling badly formed URLs, causing tons of 404 errors in web server log files. Vivek Pathak, Ask.com's Infrastructure Product...

Posted on January 4, 2008 7:03 AM

A WebmasterWorld thread is reporting several webmasters noticing that Ask.com's crawler has recently been generating tons of 404 (file not found) errors on their sites. The issue appears to stem from Ask.com auto inserting URL-Encoded spaces into the URL. URL-encoded...

Posted on December 31, 2007 6:53 AM

What is better? A custom 404 page or a generic one? In 2004, Barry wrote that a custom 404 page is a "must have" for usability purposes. That's so true. But what about search engines? A forum member asks, would...

Posted on November 28, 2007 7:25 AM

A Cre8asite Forums member noticed that his site is reporting 404 errors when in Google Webmaster Tools. What can he do about it? Is it bad from an SEO standpoint? First of all, a bit of troubleshooting is recommended. You...

Posted on October 29, 2007 9:32 AM

A WebmasterWorld thread asks how long does Google send out their crawlers to a page that has been removed (i.e. a 404 error not found status)? The simple answer, as mentioned in the thread is, forever. Google will continue to...

Posted on March 9, 2007 7:54 AM