Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I've had googlebot ask for pages that were gone for years.
Wondering if this would work to remove pages from Google.
Has anyone tried using a 410 page gone with google.
Yes. Seemed to work as promised.
I've had googlebot ask for pages that were gone for years.
Is there no new home for any of that content? If there is, send a 301 Moved Permanently, not a 410 Gone.
I believe that we treat 404s as if they were 410s; once Googlebot has seen a 404 at that location, I think we assume that the document is gone forever.
That might be a bit confusing to us folks since we see continued requests for 404'd pages and have to assume G is not handling 404s the way it thinks it does.
That might be a bit confusing to us folks since we see continued requests for 404'd pages and have to assume G is not handling 404s the way it thinks it does.
What would happen if there was a broken link and Googlebot was simply following it a second time?
I believe that we treat 404s as if they were 410s; once Googlebot has seen a 404 at that location, I think we assume that the document is gone forever.
Ummm, I sure hope that is not correct. If so, we have some problems. The two Status Codes are distinctly different. If the server is down for a moment or two, or a day or two, I'm sure not going to return a 410 for the documents on that server.
The 410 Status Code would be used when a document is known to be permanently gone. The 404 Status Code is a condition which can be temporary or permanent.
404 Not Found
The server has not found anything matching the Request-URI. No indication is given of whether the condition is temporary or permanent.
410 Gone
The requested resource is no longer available at the server and no forwarding address is known. This condition is expected to be considered permanent. Clients with link editing capabilities SHOULD delete references to the Request-URI after user approval.
Once Googlebot has seen a 404 at that location...
Maybe Matt meant to say "Once Googlebot has seen a 404 at that location for a period of 30 days, I think we assume that the document is gone forever.
What would happen if there was a broken link and Googlebot was simply following it a second time?
But as I quoted above that's not what Matt said ("once Googlebot has seen a 404 at that location, I think we assume that the document is gone forever"), and that's part of what confuses me. A 404 Not Found should not be considered the same as a 410 Gone. But it appears that some folks within Google think that this is how they treat a 404.
But the other but is that we continue to see requests for 404'd pages, which is as it would be if G considered a 404 as a temporary not found and went back to give it another go. That is not treating a 404 as a 410 as they seem to think they do.
We go around in circles.
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I fully agree with you, POR. If you track back to the original sitemap team interview through the above link, it seems like Matt might not have interpreted it quite correctly.
It appears as if G treats a 404 and 410 the same, but as a 404, not a 410. In time, those pages should drop out of the index.
Would be much better if they treated them as recommended.
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