Why does it take so long for Google to accept a 301 or 404

[zeus]

For about 3 month ago I redirect 1000 pages with 301, be cause google had fetched a version of those pages that I dont even knew existed. In another situation I simply removed 300 pages from my server so it was a 404. I still see 33% of those pages in the google search, I think thats something google could work on instead of messing up the rankings with Panda and when you add new pages to your site, they show up the same day, why is it so hard for google to remove pages from there index.

[walkman]

3 months is too long IMO, but usually they need to see them a few times just in case it was a mistake or temporary.

[tedster]

Agreed that 3 months is too long - the URL should vanish from search results long before that. It may still show in Webmaster Tools, but that's a different story.

If the URLs don't leave search results, the first step in fixing it is to be sure that other pages on the site are not still linking to the old URLs.

[zeus]

there where a mail.domain version of the site, which i have for 3 month ago disabled on server and a 301, still there is page in the serps.

[walkman]

Since it's there anyway: re-enable, serve a 410 for a while and it will be gone.

Maybe someone has links to it and Google hangs to the old site becuase of that ?