Best strategy to handle over 100,000 404 errors.

[SEO_Promenade]

I recently been given a site that has over one-hundred thousand 404 error codes listed in Google Webmasters.

It is really odd because according to Google Webmasters, the pages that are linking to these 404 pages are also pages that no longer exist (they are 404 pages themselves).

These errors were a result of site migration that had occurred.

Appreciate any input on how one might go about auditing and repairing large amounts of 404 errors.

Thank you.

[FCBM]

404s are not founds which are fine if they are really not found and there isn't a different url to point the original page to. One big issue could be that during the migration the old pages weren't 301'd which would result in tons of 404s.

Go through the 404s and see if they are issues or just relics from old data. Then you can mark in fixed in WMTs.

Hope that helps

[SEO_Promenade]

The WMT notion helps. Thank you.

The main concern is really timing. Are there any effective ways of going through thousands of 404 pages and finding valuable redirects?

[FCBM]

Here's one thought to start the quest. ID if the migration was done correctly.

eg If you had a site that was example.com/mens did the 301 look like newsite.com/mens? If not then you might be having tons of issues with a bad planned migration.

[SEO_Promenade]

It is a problem with the site migration.

Never the less, I have a site right now with over 100,000 errors dealing with 404.

I'm looking for a game plan on how to deal with this many 404 errors in a time effective way.

Any ideas with type of tools or shortcuts? Has anyone else had to deal with a similar issue?

[KristinaKledzik]

There really isn't a problem with having 100,000 404 "errors." Google's telling you that it thinks 100,000 pages exist, but when it tries to find them, it's getting a 404 code. That's fine: 404s tell Google that a page doesn't exist and to remove the page from Google's index. That's what we want.

The real problem is with your site migration, as FCBM pointed out. If you properly 301 redirect old pages to new, Google will be redirected to the new page, it won't just hit a 404. If you fix the problems with the site migration (not focusing on Google too much), the 404 errors will naturally subside.

The other option is to just take the hit from the migration, and Google will eventually remove all of these pages from its index and stop reporting on them, as long as there aren't live links pointing to the removed pages.

Good luck!

[SEO_Promenade]

Kristina - thanks for the feedback.

By any chance, would you have a site migration guideline that you recommend?

[KristinaKledzik]

This is a pretty thorough outline of what you need to do: http://moz.com/blog/web-site-migration-guide-tips-for-seos

My steps are usually:

1. Identify pages that get significant organic traffic by pulling the Organic Traffic report in Google Analytics for the past year or so.
2. Identify pages that have a significant number of links (or, have links from high traffic sources) in Open Site Explorer.
3. Map where that content should be now, and 301 redirect to new pages.
4. Completely remove all old pages from the index by 404ing them and making sure that no links on new pages point to old pages.

Sounds quick and simple, but this definitely takes time. Good luck!