When serving a 410 for page gone, should I serve an error page?

[HSDOnline]

I'm removing a bunch of old & rubbish pages and was going to serve 410 to tell google they're gone (my understanding is it'll get them out of the index a bit quicker than a 404).

I should still serve an error page though, right? Similar to a 404. That doesn't muddy the "gone" message that I'm giving Google? There's no need to 410 and die?

[KevinBudzynski]

Yes, 410's will typically get out of index faster and I recommend serving an error page w/search so that the visitor knows that the site is still around.

[HSDOnline]

This post is deleted!

[effectdigital]

Completely agree with this.

Also deploy Meta no-index (through the HTTP header / X-Robots, rather than through the HTML if that ends up being a problem... Info on both HTTP and HTML deployments here: https://developers.google.com/search/reference/robots_meta_tag)

Then you're firing both barrels of the shotgun. Telling Google not to index the pages _and _telling Google that the pages won't be coming back

[NickSamuel]

Both of these folks have it spot on and are correct in their recommendations, just remember to keep an eye on Search Console so you can verify the progress!