Hundreds Of 404s Best Dealt Wtih 301-Palooza?

[94501]

Was looking at a site's webmaster tools where there are a few hundred 404s for a site. God only knows where all those urls came from or what they once were or what. Two questions;

• How bad is all this for the site's overall ranking?

• Should I just make sure they go nowhere and 301 them all to the homepage or some other possibly relevant page? Anything bad that could happen with 301ing all this away?

• Also, the site has no sitemap submitted to Google. Any tips on that?

Thanks!

[Trupanion]

Yes, so many 404's is bad, but it all depends on how long Google has seen them.  If too many you may find yourself in Google's 3 month ranking hole.  First you should set up a 301 and try to redirect as many as possible to relevant pages.

Second, use Google Webmaster Tools and start removing the bad urls from their index.

Might be a lot of work right now, but you have to clean them up asap.

[94501]

Hey Brent,

Thanks for the message.

How do I remove them from the index?

Thanks!

[Trupanion]

Google Webmaster Tools => Site Configuration => Crawler Access => Remove URL (tab)

[94501]

Wow, one url at a time? Is there a bulk upload?

[Trupanion]

I don't believe so.

[94501]

Thanks, Brent!

[94501]

Hey Brent,

Following those steps, do I then choose:

"Remove Page From Search Results & Cache"

"Remove Page From Cache Only"

"Remove Directory"

[Trupanion]

"Remove Page From Search Results & Cache"

[94501]

You're a genius! Thanks!!