Daily SEO Tips – How to get rid of 404 pages on Google
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It happens to everyone. You rename a page, delete a page or otherwise change your site structure and end up with some pages still listed on Google. rather than have these dead pages still come up on your Google rankings you can have them removed.
To block a page or image from your site, do one of the following:
- Make sure the content is no longer live on the web. Requests for the page or image you want to remove must return an HTTP 404 (not found) or 410 status code.
- Block the content using a meta noindex tag.
- Block the content using a robots.txt file.
Now submit your removal request. You will need a Google account to do this. Log on to your account and go to Webmaster Tools. Add in your site if you haven’t already and then go to the dashboard for that site.
In the overview under Web Crawl errors – find the “Not Found” link and click on it.
This will list the URLs which are being returned as 404 errors when Google crawls your site.
Now go back to the main menu and go to the Tools section. There will be an entry for “Remove URL:s”, click on this and list your 404 pages.
The next time the Googlebot comes by your site it will insure that these pages are removed from your listings.
If you don’t have a Google account or would like assistance with this, drop me a line and we can discuss how we can work together to remove your 404 pages from Google.
