Which 404 handling? domain.com/404 or domain.com/brokenurlname

[jaffstar]

Different CMS's that we use handle 404's differently, from a Google SEO perspective which is better?

Option 1:

www.domain.com/brokenurlname redirects to www.domain.com/404


Option 2:

www.domain.com/brokenurlname remains www.domain.com/brokenurlname

[tedster]

Thr ideal is a 404 in the server header for the first response (brokenurlname.html).

A redirect can be OK, but only if the target page is served with a true 404 header. Too many servers are configured with 302 redirect to a 200 OK page that just happens to be called 404.html That is not at all clear to Google or other search engines.

[jaffstar]

The cms was using brokenurlname.html, and not using the 404 header and copying the content of the category it was in, as a result things got a little crazy with duplicate pages.

We have now implimented the 404 header, lets see what happens :)

[g1smd]

You need a direct 404 response for the original URL request.

A redirect to another URL is a "signal of poor technical quality" and that's likely negatively affecting one or more of the "signals of trust" for your site, somewhere within the Google algorithm.

[jaffstar]

Guys, I got any link of domain.com/brokenlinkurlname resulting in a 404 However, here is the big issue:

IF you go to domain.com/product/sub-item/brokenurlname it loads the default template of sub-item. When running a scan, I find multiple versions of the same page due to it not handling the 404 query correctly. This is shocking from a duplicate content/seo perspective?

We have 1000's of historical pages in the index, when clicked, they bring up the default template in the category causing more dup. issues.

Links points to pages that don't exist, causing this again...

My 301 list is massive, and I can't find more holes without 404 codes....

Question:

With this default template getting loaded, and not a 404... do you agree this is killing the site ? (traffic has halved).

[g1smd]

It could be a factor.

The script should be modified such that when there is no content to be displayed, the very first thing it does is send the proper 404 header.

[milosevic]

g1msd, do you have a source about 404 redirects being a signal of poor technical quality?

Not saying that I don't believe you, that makes sense but I'd be interested in reading your source.

[enigma1]

In your case either emit a 404 header directly or do a 301 redirect depending how you want to handle the request. But don't do a 404 via a 301.

My 301 list is massive, and I can't find more holes without 404 codes....

Then you should be handling the 301 at the application level or setup a routine to redirect to the most appropriate page instead of having the server to parse a huge list of urls for every request.