Custom 404 Page Indexing

[sftravel]

Hi - We created a custom 404 page based on SEOMoz recommendations.  But.... the page seems to be receiving traffic via organic search.  Does it make more sense to set this page as "noindex" by its metatag?

[Anthony_NorthSEO]

Hi sftravel,

Good question.

There has to be some kind of keyword cannibalization happening if your custom 404 page is really ranking higher than the page you've optimized for those keywords.

In short... Yes. No-Index your 404 page. Users seeing a 404 error page as a search result doesn't really do anything but harm your site's reputation, as it more than likely makes them think that the site is ill-maintained.

The more important question is this:

**Is the 404 page itself ranking and receiving the traffic or is there a page on your site that has moved and is now yielding the 404 error? **

I'd suggest using the Queries and Landing Pages sections in the Traffic Sources (Search Engine Optimization) menu in Google Analytics  to track down what search queries are leading to your 404 page. Webmaster tools will work too. Im almost positive that it's simply a page that was ranking and has since moved that's causing the problem. If so, a simple 301 redirect to the correct URL should solve the problem without harming the ranking of the page or decreasing organic traffic. It may actually improve, as I'm sure the bounce rate for the clicks from that specific query will decrease.

Hope this helps.

Anthony

[KeriMorgret]

Have you checked the response code of your custom 404 page and made sure that it's returning a 404 and not a 200?

[sftravel]

This is a great idea that I missed.  Any hints / links on setting this up correctly for a basic html site?  We are old school.  

[KeriMorgret]

Sorry that I missed this response! You want to find a server header checker tool (doing a Google search on those keywords will get you several such tools) and then put your 404 page into that tool. That will tell you if that page is truly serving up a 404.