Removing 404's with Google URL remover - bad?

[Boulder90]

I had about fourteen or so "404's" from my site that I wanted gone, and I chose to remove them from the Google URL remover tool in webmasters account.

Was that the wrong thing to do? I hear good and bad on that process.

Also, for whatever reason google is dropping my pages from the index. I just added around 80 new pages of good unique content(and images) the last month, and they just went backwards.

[tedster]

Do those urls actually return a 404 status? If so, I've never run into trouble from a url removal request.

google is dropping my pages from the index.

According to what source, the site: operator or the sitemaps report in Webmaster Tools?

[Boulder90]

Hi Tester. Yes, they were actual 404 pages.

The source for the "de-indexed" URL's is the sitemap URL area in webmaster tools. Thanks for your comments.

[jdMorgan]

> Hi Tester. Yes, they were actual 404 pages.

That was not the question. What HTTP status code does your server return for requests to those URLs? Use the Live HTTP Headers add-on for Firefox/Mozilla to find out if you haven't already checked this. A headers checker is "basic kit" for Webmasters -- and should be used often.

Jim

[Boulder90]

Hi JD - yes hey are returning an actual 404 status.

Right now I have no idea why Google is just completely dropping my pages from it's index in the sitemap URL archive notice. Down 48 URL's the last two weeks, dropped five since yesterday. :( Page rank was 4 after one year up, now 2. :(