Stephan, again, illustrates tech terms vs. common sense.
I love the “Oh noooes” most!
| Return a 404 When You’re Supposed To, Or Get Dinged by Google |
A friend’s website’s Google rankings have tanked after their redesign. And I think I know why. Have a look at the status codes their web server returns when you request a garbage URL (a page that couldn’t possibly exist)…
#lwp-request -S www.randomcompany.com/dafsadf
GET http://www.randomcompany.com/dafsadf –> 301 Moved Permanently
GET http://www.randomcompany.com/search?q=dafsadf%20 –> 200 OK
A 301 followed by a 200. Oh noooes!
That REALLY should be a 404 status code instead.
Make sure that garbage URLs like www.yourcompany.com/aadsfadsfdafs return a 404 status code. Googlebot is known to request garbage URLs and to see if you respond with a 404 like you’re supposed to. If you don’t, your quality score goes down the tubes. |
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This entry was posted on Friday, August 22nd, 2008 at 10:04 pm and is filed under SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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