lucy24 - 8:36 pm on Feb 20, 2012 (gmt 0)

I am now left with 16K worth of 404 pages despite serving 410 in response

Apparently g### always does this. It doesn't mean anything.

Is your site so popular and well-known that if humans can't find it in g### they will try a different search engine? "Dammit, I know that site's around here somewhere..." Obviously not an issue if you don't rely on search-engine traffic at all-- but if so, you wouldn't even need to ask.