Help with 404 pages

[Obbserv]

Hello everyone,

A few days back, we have permanently removed 3 main categories from our E-commerce website and because of that our more than 50k URLs are showing 404 error (according to Google Search Console).

What are the good practices to handle such extensively 404 pages?

Please help!!

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

Just let them be there or if they'll get a lot of external links make sure that you redirect the pages to the most relevant page or the homepage.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

A 404 just tells Google that a page has moved or been removed and that there is nowhere that you would prefer a visitor to be redirected too. There is absolutely no problem with a few 404's or thousands.

Just make sure your 404 page is helpful to people that might land there and don't be tempted to try and redirect where it isn't needed. Make sure there are links to key categories and you can even add a search to the page as well.

-Andy

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

Matt Cutts actually made some suggestions depending on the size of your site as to what you can do with eCommerce 404 pages. You can learn more about that here.

Here is a resource with some best practices for your 404 page, as well as some great examples that you can take advantage of to make the best user experience possible for 404 pages.

Remember - at the end of the day what matters most is the user experience; if there is a place that they can be redirected to that's relevant to the product or category they were looking for previously, send them there. If there isn't, provide a valuable 404 page that allows them to search, navigate, see other products, coupons, etc. so that they can continue to move through your site instead of getting frustrated and leaving.

Hope this helps! Good luck!