Quadrille - 1:51 am on Aug 7, 2008 (gmt 0)

Not just a 404, but a quality page that gives the visitor some positive choices.

Few sites NEED to say "404 hard luck mate"; most sites can have a purpose deigned page (or even a copy of the index page), that helps the lost reader to find what they want.

If the pages were as poor as you say, hopefully few visitors will find them, with newer, better pages taking priority.

I see no reason for Google to worry about 404s, though if you delete pages that had a fair number of inbound links or visitors, then I'd 301 such pages to newer equivalents.

Might be a good time to run xenu, too - I suspect the myth about 404s arose out of 404s follwing broken links. That *could* be a problem. But 404s and good internal navigation shouldn't be an issue. I'm sure Google worries much more about functionality than credibility.