Summary: It’s not just about numbers when it comes to 404s and 301. This article explains 404 page not found errors, 301 redirects and how a simple tool – Virante – can retain your valuable links.
A 404 – page not found web error appears when the web page you have searched for can not be found. 404 page errors don’t tell the user whether the page has be permanently or temporarily moved or disabled.
From an SEO point of view, there are mixed thoughts on whether 404s should be allowed. Some SEO experts recommend instead permanently redirecting the error page back to the home page or another page on the site (this preserves some of the link juice if someone has linked to your broken page). Others don’t mind 404s and are happy just to provide a custom error page. Rand Fishkin puts himself somewhere inbetween, but we agree with his comment that “simply to have your homepage appear when a URL is mistyped or a link breaks doesn’t send the right message to users or search engines”. It’s not user friendly, the user doesn’t know what’s going on when that happens. We think on the whole 404s should be avoided for this reason – and from an SEO perspective, any URLs that have links to them which are 404ing ought to be fixed as a priority (you can identify these in Google Webmaster Tools).
301s on the other hand are user friendly, as they are a way to permanently redirect the user to a new page. Here’s an example of what goes in your .htaccess file to control the redirect:
redirect 301 /old/old.htm http://www.you.com/new.htm
301s appear when a web page has been moved to another web address. This means that the user is not left with a blank error page, but a page of your website that matches what they have clicked on. This is surely preferable (plus stands the highest chance of preserving any link juice that has accumulated from people linking to your old page).
Virante’s free page rank recovery tool enables you to check that all your URL addresses lead to proper pages and not 404’s pages – http://www.virante.com/seo-tools/pagerank-recovery-tool.php. Have a go and see what the tool finds for you. It’s a great tool that enables you to make sure 404s aren’t losing you valuable link juice.
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