Dead pages (301) live on forever?

[flobaby]

I have a few dead pages that I redirect to my index. They appear in searches on Ink and Alltheweb. Any idea how long these guys will continue to be spidered and listed before going to that big domain in the sky?

[Fischerlaender]

If there are any links to these (redirected, not dead) pages (or better: URLs), then search engines will again and again find them. It is then just a question of the engine's policy how to deal with these redirects. And perhaps there will always be engines, whose policy is to list URLs, even if they are returning a redirect status code.

[flobaby]

Gotcha. Thanks for reply. Strange though, they're not linked by any site including mine.

[cyanweb]

Redirects last ages in Google as well... we did a file structure revamp about 6 moths ago - and all the old URLs are STILL in google - we had 301 redirects using HTACCESS in the start - but killed them off with the hope that Google would drop the old pages and pick up the new... instead after 4 months all the old URLS were there + all the NEW ones - so in fact Google had 3000 urls instead of the real 1500 pages with 1/2 of them all being dead links...

4 months it was like that and we took the traffic loss and 404 errors on the chin to see how long it took for Google to drop the old pages - they never did... do we just put the HTACCESS redirects back in and Google still thinks we have twice as many pages as we do when usling the site: search ... go figure...

[davidpbrown]

cyanweb,
My experience is that 410 ="I know the file you request but it is 'Gone'" is a more definite statement and can be more effective than 404's='not found' which could be taken to suggest it worth trying again later..

[cyanweb]

A ha! One learns something new everyday... I looked into the 410 but there doesn't seem to be a way of saying instead of:

redirect /x/y/z.htm to newlocation [.com...] (301)

to say this instead:

document /x/y/z.htm is GONE - but in the meantime redirect user to /x/y/new-z.htm

or say

If you are a robot named Google this page is GONE - but everyone else you go to the new page location...

Any help appreciated!

[Fischerlaender]

301 redirects are the correct way telling a user agent that the requested ressource is now to be found under a new URL.

My experience is that Google correctly reacts to 301 redirects, but if it finds links pointing to the "old" version, it keeps requesting those gone URLs.

[cyanweb]

Hmm - it's been nearly 5 months now and Google still has the old links there - and there are no links pointing to those pages anymore...

[cyanweb]

Ahh - no "internal" links pointing to old pages - but probably lots of external ones... though we thought 5 months would be enough 404's to clear out old pages...

Either way I'm leaving the 301 redirects there now...

[flobaby]

News flash (at least in my little brain)...
These continuously open 301s can used be used to our advantage. I redirected some of my old 301s to new pages and wouldn't ya know, Ink is picking them up, so now I'm pleased as punch at their longevity.

Funny thing is that I pointed one to a page I currently have in PFI and the 301 version is ranking 13 places above its PFI match. Maybe there are points for URL age?

Anyway, long live the neverending 301s! :-)

[Fischerlaender]

Ahh - no "internal" links pointing to old pages - but probably lots of external ones... though we thought 5 months would be enough 404's to clear out old pages...

Perhaps the clear out has already happened - but what, if Google is seeing a link to a page it deleted two months ago? How should Google know that this is an outdated link? It could also be a new link to a new page, that just gives a 404 error because of some mistake of the webmaster.

[BarkerJr]

Redirect gone /x/y/z.htm