After Deletion of URL - Which is bettar 301 redirect or Error 404 Message.

[sourabh_gravity]

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[MassivePrime]

Some people will say 301 regardless of the situation but here is what I usually look at before choosing to either 301 or 404 it:

1. Are there any high quality backlinks to the page? You can use Google web master tools to find out)
2. Is the URL easy to remember (would people be linking to it because it is easy to remember?)
3. Is the quantity of traffic to that page worth preserving?

In most cases I would recommend creating new content for the page if it is worth keeping, if not, a 404 won't hurt your SEO so don't worry.

Hope this helps

[sourabh_gravity]

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[MassivePrime]

From what you described, the page you deleted was already being penalized, a fact that is proven since you were not receiving the massive amounts of traffic you had  on the other one. The main page is probably going to remain unchanged but it's good  that you removed the old one.

[NakulGoyal]

I think this is an interesting scenario where a 404 is actually better. 301 might not hurt but looking at the substance value which looks like nil in this case....there's actually no value in doing a 301. Granted that it can only help (and very very rarely hurt), but if it did not help the page itself,  there's no value there to redirect it to the other page and this is that rare case scenario where it "might" hurt to do a 301...so not worth the risk.

Definitely delete and let it be a 404.

[sourabh_gravity]

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