When is it best to remove a URL in webmaster tools rather than do a 301 Redirect?

[RoxBrock]

I have removed several blog pages that copied or linked to article marketing sites. I redirected them to other pages, but this is causing me to get soft 404 errors.

I started using the Remove URL tool in Google Webmasters (under Google Index). Is this the correct way to handle them? Should I additionally redirect them?

Any information would be much appreciated.

[guillermoga]

Hi!

You need to only redirect an URL if the content is similar or has anything to do with your new URL. Think if the user would want to see your new URL when clicking on the old one on the SERPs. If you update an article, it will be correct to redirect users so that they could read your updated content.

It's ok if some old pages are getting 404. Google will remove them eventually. You certainly don't need to redirect these URLs to solve this.

Hope it helps.

Guillermo

[MickEdwards]

This sounds like your redirects are not right.  If you redirect from one URL to another you should have a 301 (or if temp a 302) header response.A soft 404 is where you redirect to the 404 page but you get a page found 200 header response (or any other response that is not 404).

What I would suggest is to remove any redirect from the removed URL/page and ensure you have the appropriate line in your .htaccess file for loading the correct 404 page when a URL cannot be found:

ErrorDocument 404 /whatever-you-name-your-404-file.htm

[guillermoga]

I'm sorry, I've totally misunderstood the question.

Take Michael's advice. If you have any trouble coding your .htaccess file, just let us know.

Cheers.