will 404 folder in url hurt seo?

[Caps]

Hi Guys,

I have a new question and need your help.

I'm build a forum using a template but I can't fully control the url so there could be 404 result.

There could the url like https://discuss.example.org/d/36107-sending-emails-and-confirmation-mail-does-not-work. If I visit https://discuss.example.org/d/, it returns 404 but I can't fix it.

There is not internal link point to https://discuss.example.org/d/. Will this hurt SEO?



Many thanks.

[edited by: not2easy at 11:13 am (utc) on Nov 28, 2024]
[edit reason] please use "example.org" for readability [/edit]

[not2easy]

...but I can't fully control the url so there could be 404 result.

I'm not sure what you mean about not controlling the URL - when you add an URL to your site, you should be able to create whatever directories are used in the URL and prevent any 404 errors. The content needs to exist in order to use the URL.

If there are no links to the URLs that don't exist they won't cause you any problems, but when they do exist it is because you have set up the necessary folders for the links. I don't see that adding a forum is going to improve overall ranking. Reddit ranks because they partnered with Google for training AI. It isn't a magic fix.

If you don't control the URLs to your forum, does that mean it is not on your site? How do you plan to maintain a forum on a different site where you do not have access for settings and moderation?

[Caps]

I use a opensource forum template to deploy it on my site so the url generating rule is not fully under control.

[lucy24]

There could the url like https://discuss.example.org/d/36107-sending-emails-and-confirmation-mail-does-not-work. If I visit https://discuss.example.org/d/, it returns 404 but I can't fix it.

Do you mean that there is the actually existing URL /d/36107 et cetera, leading to an actually existing page ... but then if you, on a whim, request /d/ without the rest, it's a 404 because /d/ by itself doesn't exist?

Think no more about it. I very much doubt G### even tries working back along the URLpath that way. They may have done so 20 years ago when everything was real, physical directories, but they would be silly to try it today. (Granted, “it would be silly” is not always a reason for G not to do something, but, well, let’s not look for trouble where none exists.)

Instead, think about ways and means to encourage humans to use your forums. At the moment, it isn’t exactly a growth industry.

[Caps]

Thanks Lucy. That's what I mean.

I think I should consider more about the later jobs to attact users now.

[ashleydent4u]

Hey! Don’t stress too much—404 errors like that won’t hurt your SEO as long as there aren’t internal links pointing to the broken URL. Search engines like Google understand that some 404s are natural, especially for dynamic sites. Just make sure you have a custom 404 page in place to guide visitors back to useful content and monitor your site regularly to catch any broken links. If the template gives you more control later, you can clean it up, but for now, you’re good!

[Caps]

Thanks for your suggestions Ashley!