Rebranding: 404 to homepage?

[JohnPalmer]

Hello all!
I did a rebranding, [Domain A] -> [Domain B]. what to do with all the 404 pages?

1. [Domain A (404)] -> [Domain B (homepage)]?
2. [Domain A (404)] -> [Domain B (404 page + same url) - for example: xixix.com/page/bla

What do you think ?

[Yeeply.com]

Hello John,

I think the best option is the second one: [Domain A (404)] -> [Domain B (404 page + same url). In the 404 page, you can implement a 404 page with some options, and your visitors could chose if they want to go to the homepage, blog, abandon the site,....

Remember, this page is necessary but you don't want people land this page I dont know your SEO/IT level, but you should be sure to redirect properly all your old pages to the new ones using the htacces file.

• domain(A) --> domain (B)
• domain(A)/homepage --> domain(B)/homepage
• domain(A)/about-us --> domain(B)/about-us
• and so on....

This is specially important to avoid an increase in the number of visitors landing to your 404 page after a rebranding/domain change.

Hope this helps,

Luis

[JohnPalmer]

Hi Luis!

Thanks for your answer!
Do you know plugin for this? (for the auto redirect 404 to the same page with another domain)?

and important question: If I did it already, I meant, all 404 redirect to Homepage. It's safety to replace it again?

[Yeeply.com]

Hello John,

Do you know plugin for this? (for the auto redirect 404 to the same page with another domain)?

==> May I know your domain name? Are you using wordpress? Sometimes you don't even need a plugin for this if you know how to code

and important question: If I did it already, I meant, all 404 redirect to Homepage. It's safety to replace it again?

==> YES, normally shouldn't impact your site

Luis

[JohnPalmer]

I have a Wordpress site you know plugin (RegEx)?

and what I'll do with all the errors in my WMT?

[Yeeply.com]

I don't know this plugin sorry!

Let's think about 2 scenarios to understand the situation here:

• If a site is having 1,000+ visitors/month watching a 404 error ==> the problem here is not the 404 landing page, but a bad domain URL redirect or something different to be analyzed.
• If a site is having 20 visitors/month watching a 404 error ==> there's no problem here, this happens to everyone and you should take care of them creating a 404 landing page to minimize the impact of a 404 error.

In what case you are now? I need more information in order to help you/giving you deeper advice.

Luis

[JohnPalmer]

I have a website with +3000 visitors per day, I don't know how many 404s I have in my old website because all of them redirect to my Homepage, I have no any idea how many.

Don't forget: I have a news websites with 20,000 pages (live). it's okay to keep the redirects as is? )(to homepage?)
all the 404s came from forums/comments from third party websites.

[Yeeply.com]

Well, in that case probably I'd keep it like that (I don't see any SEO/IT problem with a redirect to the homepage!)

It's just that I rather prefer the other solution in terms of UX.

Luis

[JohnPalmer]

If I understand you correct, you meant to keep it as is? 404 -> homepage?why? why you changed your decision?

[Yeeply.com]

Hello John,

Ok, a little misunderstanding here! Remember first of all that I'm only trying to help/advice you but I don't know your domain, your site and what you may have in mind hehe.

If you read my first answer, I said "the best option". Both options were good, but in my case, I prefer to put a 404 page instead of sending the users to the homepage (with no explanation). Again, this is only a little improvement in terms of UX but in terms of SEO both options work fine.

It's all I can say!

Luis

[MattRoney]

I have to agree here. I tend to believe that redirecting all 404s to the homepage isn't the best idea from a user experience perspective. If a user clicks on a link on your site expecting to find information on a particular topic and instead winds up on the homepage with no explanation, they're likely to get frustrated.

Honestly, your BEST bet is to 301-redirect all old URLs to their equivalent new pages. If there are no corresponding new pages, then I'd say redirecting to a 404 page is your best bet.

[JohnPalmer]

and it's safety to do that after a month? all my 404s redirect to my homepage currently.

and you know about plugin + regular expression for this?

[MattRoney]

I can't think of any reason it wouldn't be safe to alter those redirects after a month. You may want to resubmit your sitemap in Webmaster Tools to alert Google, but it should be totally safe.

I'm afraid I can't recommend a plugin or regular expression—those are both well outside my expertise. As an agency SEO, I placed 301s in .htaccess or had a dev do it for me.