Links to my 404 page (on purpose) - What's the best course of action?

[garyr_h]

I have a 404 page that people seem to enjoy. It's entertaining and has a link back to the main website.

However, since people seem to enjoy it, I have quite a few links pointing to the page with different nonsense words like example.com/blah or example.com/weoiadk

These links are on purpose as the 404 page is listed within "unique 404 pages" blog posts, articles, etc. on other webpages with links to that. I also have some links from within my own industry because they enjoy it as well.

So I'm wondering, what is the best course of action for this? Obviously, those links they are creating is causing a ton of 404 errors. And I don't think I'm getting any link juice from it.

Should I 301 /blah and /weoiadk etc. to the actual address of the 404 page to create a 202? Or what would you do?

[garyr_h]

I meant 200 (OK).

[tedster]

What an interesting challenge. The crux of it is that you still need a functioning 404 process.

How many links are "quite a few"? If it's a manageable number, then your idea sounds workable to me. And make sure that custom error message page has good links into the rest of the site!

[garyr_h]

It is a manageable number.

What do you mean by "need a functioning 404 process"?

Is serving the page as a 200 OK while still serving it as a 404 to actual not found pages? Or would that trigger some sort of Soft 404 from Google?

[g1smd]

There's a risk you'll be flagged for using Soft 404s.

Make sure that if you directly call the 404 filename e.g. as example.com/error404.php that it returns 404 status in the HTTP header in addition to example.com/nonsense also returing 404 status.

[garyr_h]

So there's no possible way to get link juice from it?

[lucy24]

Can you communicate with the people putting up the links? It may not have occurred to them that the best way to reach the 404 page is
:: drumroll ::
by requesting the 404 page. They just need to know its real name.

[tedster]

What do you mean by "need a functioning 404 process"?

Just a g1smd described - you don't want to start redirecting anything other bad requests - just those few that you know are intentional links. And yes, if you do as you say you will gain some backlink value.

For clarity's sake, you might want to redirect to a COPY of the error message, rather than the exact same address. That could also help you avoid future issues.

[netmeg]

Heh, you could also include something along the lines of "want to link to this page? here's some code"

[g1smd]

You could write a blog post about your error page(s) and redirect those requests to it - even if your site doesn't have blog software installed.

You don't need to actually install wordpress, you could have a /blog/ folder and a few static pages with news and views on.

[Planet13]

Slightly off topic...

Heh, you could also include something along the lines of "want to link to this page? here's some code"

I like that idea, but have been told by a few "gurus" that google would consider that a "link scam" and could punish a site for doing that.

anyone have any thoughts on this?

Now back to your regularly scheduled thread...

[tedster]

but have been told by a few "gurus" that google would consider that a "link scam" and could punish a site for doing that.

I see similar things all the time - I can't imagine how that would violate Google guidelines. I think it's a damn good idea.

[Marketing Guy]

Does the page insert the page name / URL in a funny / enjoyable way or is it just generally funny?

If it's the former, you could create your own top 10 list of amusing examples that people are linking to and ensure those 10 pages link to your key content (perhaps in slightly different ways).

[garyr_h]

Thanks, everyone.

I'll try the redirect approach; create a copy and 301 the links and make sure the page has links to inner pages which are important and helpful.