Google Cache can't keep up with my 403s

[HireSpace]

Hi Mozzers,

I hope everyone is well.

I'm having a problem with my website and 403 errors shown in Google Webmaster Tools. The problem comes because we "unpublish" one of the thousands of listings on the site every few days - this then creates a link that gives a 403. At the same time we also run some code that takes away any links to these pages. So far so good.

Unfortunately Google doesn't notice that we have removed these internal links and so tries to access these pages again. This results in a 403.

These errors show up in Google Webmaster Tools and when I click on "Linked From" I can verify that that there are no links to the 403 page - it's just Google's Cache being slow.

My question is

a) How much is this hurting me?

b) Can I fix it?

All suggestions welcome and thanks for any answers!

[Ray-pp]

Hi HireSpace,

a) The negative impact depends on:

• Is there traffic landing on this page from any outside channel (organic, referral, paid marketing)

If so, then yes it is probably hurting your site. If a visitor sees a 403 page a common response is to go directly back to the referring page, i.e. they leave your site.

• Did the 403'd page have external links pointing to the page?

If yes, then a 403 error would cause the link authority to drop, since you do not redirect that page to another page on your site.

• As far as SEO is concerned, no this isn't negatively impacting your site.

When Google sees a 403 error they pretty much handle it like any other 400 error. They wont penalize you, however, having a lot of 400 errors could be an indication of poor usability and we know how Google loves to introduce new ranking factors for the SERPs.

b) Can I fix it?

Yes, I suggest, for any page removed from your site, that you 301 the page to its closest related page. This tells G that the page is permanently moved to a new page, pass any authority to that page, and anyone landing on the old page is automatically redirected to the new page. You'll see the 403 errors decrease as G crawls your site and recognizes the 301 redirect.

[Highland]

So... why return a 403 Forbidden? A 404 Not Found is what you should return. That sends a stronger signal than a 403. Either way, both will eventually lead to the pages being de-indexed. If you need the pages gone faster, there is a way to manually de-index a page using Webmaster Tools.

[HireSpace]

Hi Ray-pp,

Thanks for this. I think we will redirect to similar pages.

Much appreciated!