google and 404 traffic

what to do with 404's

[tim3562]

Question:

I picked up a domain that someone left behind and it has some sub pages indexed, which do not exist on my site.

I set my 404 to an advertiser, would I better off setting my 404's to go to my main page? Would that help ranking at all?

[bakedjake]

Make a nice 404.html (or whatever extension) page that gets served up when users request a page that doesn't exist. We usually have the main navigational system so its appearance is uniform with the rest of the site, along with a nice, helpful error message, and a mini-sitemap highlighting main areas or categories that the user might be looking for.

Good for the users, and relatively good for the engines.

[Oaf357]

I'd recommend what bakedjake said.

Don't get too technical in your error messages though.