Google On 404/410 Status Codes; We Ignore Everything Else On The Page

Jan 20, 2015 - 8:34 am 9 by

Google 404 ErrorEveryone recommends that you set up custom 404/410 pages, so that if someone lands on the page, they have somewhere else to navigate towards when looking for something.

There is nothing worse than sending a user to a blank 404 page and then just leaving unhappy.

But is there a purpose for Google SEO reasons to have these custom 404 pages? Not really. Google won't look at any of the content or links on those pages. They will just process the 404 or 410 status code and leave. It won't pass any link juice, it won't be used to judge your quality. It will just be crawled for the 404/410 status response.

Google's John Mueller said on Twitter in response to a question on this:

We ignore everything on pages that return 404/410 when we crawl them - make them work for your users.

This is common knowledge for most of you guys but hey, good to have it documented again.

Forum discussion at Twitter.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
- YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: April 29, 2025

Apr 29, 2025 - 10:00 am
Other Search Engines

ChatGPT Search Gains Shopping Search Features (Not Ads) & More

Apr 29, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google: Changing Lastmod Date In Sitemap Isn't An SEO Hack

Apr 29, 2025 - 7:41 am
Bing Search

Bing Tests New AI Answer Summary

Apr 29, 2025 - 7:31 am
Google Ads

Google Tests New Shopping Ads Design

Apr 29, 2025 - 7:21 am
Bing Search

Bing Search Without Microsoft Name By Logo

Apr 29, 2025 - 7:11 am
Previous Story: Google Webmaster Tools Noticies For App Deep Linking With Mismatched Content