Explanation for 404 errors generated by Alta Vista

[volatilegx]

This idea was originally published in a well-known paid subscription SEO newsletter today. I'm paraphrasing here: AV is requesting non-existent pages in mass quantities to test to see whether web servers are using the 404 errors to generate dynamicly optimized pages.

I've personally noted a large number of 404 errors generated from AV IP addresses.

I wasn't sure whether to provide a link to the website of the newsletter that broke this news. Stickymail me if you want it.

[digitalghost]

Personally, I think AV should concentrate on the links to the non-existent pages they have in their index.

There are a number of sites I know of that took advantage of the 404 trick to remove the ? from the URL. Far from trying to spam the engines, they were merely compensating for the lack of the engines' ability to spider dynamic sites.

Not that many will be bothered by AV requesting pages that don't exist, the spider is usually the most traffic a site gets from AV. ;)

DG

[jeremy goodrich]

I've had them index a few sites, from the domain registration database, recently. Frankly, it irritated me, since it's a category which is so sold out, I expect nobody gets even a click without paying for it.

My .02 cents.