Hello, I have some 404 page due to the fact that i change the link of my website those 404 have no backlinks at all so i fell like i don’t need to do a redirection.
Is there a way to delete them and if yes is this a good practice? Thanks.
1 Like
You can’t delete them but you can prevent those pages from crawling via robot.txt file…
1 Like
you can,t delete them but you can change your url only.
Setting pages to 404 should be enough to remove those pages after Google indexes your page enough times. Google is very careful about this because when many sites crash or have site maintenance, they return 404 instead of 503, so Google wouldn’t want to remove pages from their index until they’re sure the page is gone.
Here is Google guide about removing pages: https://support.google.com/websearch/troubleshooter/3111061?visit_id=1-636576555967283207-2068267150&rd=1
There is URL removal tool available but it’s only intended for pages that urgently need to be removed, so I wouldn’t recommend that.
There really is no harm in redirecting your 404 error. Simply download a redirection plugin, enter in the 404 error link and the new link you would like it to redirect to, and the problem is solved instantly!
No harm, but the OP has stated they do not want to do this.
Plugin for what? I realise this may come as a shock to some, but it is not necessarily the case that the OP is using WordPress; there are other ways to create a site.
1 Like
I understand that not everyone is using WordPress, yet it was never stated that they weren’t using it/how they created their site. Since no other easy and direct solution was given, that is why I responded with redirecting the 404 error. Because, hey, there is no harm in doing so 
you can’t delete the 404 page but you can redirect the page by linking it into other redirecting plugin, and you can prevent the 404 page from google crawler…
How do you suggest that can be done?
If googlebot follows a link (perhaps from another site) which leads to a non-existent page, it will encounter a 404 error. The only way to prevent that for pages which have been removed is to set up a redirect, which the OP has stated they do not wish to do.
‘error 404 page not found’ is doing exactly what it should be doing. You can’t remove what is not there. I assume the actual question is ‘how do i stop a search engines indexing a page that is now removed’. Which as above is mostly a case of leaving it to naturally be removed by the search engine. Just make sure you remove any internal links on your site. Updating your sitemap could possibly be useful too.
It’s pretty hard to remove other links on the www as, depending on the link, it could be on numerous forums and websites.
At the end of the day anyone can put a link to your site and mistype it.
I would certainly consider making the 404 page valid and adding content because sometimes it takes months for crawlers to add valid pages.
The 404 page will be checked again to ensure the problem still exists.
When valid content is found their index will be updated, far better than waiting indefinitely for a new page to be crawled and indexed.
The best thing to do with these is to set up a 301 redirect so that Google can find the updated URL’s following your redesign. If the page no longer exists redirect them to your home page.
I’m not sure i agree that you should send 404 pages to your homepage. If i have a page that i decide to remove why would google/etc then want to be redirected to my homepage as it won’t contain the same content as the page. A user might wonder why they have been dumped on your homepage when they clicked on a specific link.
Sure if you have a new page with similar content in a different place then 301 redirect old links.
In my mind i’d rather have a custom 404 page which says the page no longer exists but here are other things on my site that are similar etc.
2 Likes
This topic was automatically closed 91 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.