Handle Large Amount of 404s from Deleted Profiles
I'm working on restoring SEO for an old forum that has over 300,000 deleted profiles. I checked that all those profile pages are throwing 404.
I can setup route to take care of these old profile pages and I'm wondering if I should setup a page that says the profile has been deleted? That way, at least Google won't report 404.
Or should I leave it as it is? Google's reporting 404 since last 4-5 years on this site. Let me know your thoughts.
Do something so that Google doesn't report 404.
It's generally better to handle 404 pages with a custom "profile deleted" page, rather than leaving them as a 404 error. This provides a better user experience and signals to search engines that the content is intentionally removed, rather than just being unavailable. Additionally, it may prevent potential drop in rankings or negative impact on crawlability due to the accumulation of 404 errors.
How To Fix 404 Errors Redirect the 404 Error URL elsewhere Correct the source link Restore deleted pages Ignore the not-found error Predict typos
How To Fix 404 Errors Redirect the 404 Error URL elsewhere Correct the source link Restore deleted pages Ignore the not-found error Predict typos
Hello! Thank you for the responses. The general advise I've received in the past is that 404's don't harm anything. However, my findings have been very different.
The 404s arise from the fact that the user profiles were deleted. I'll try to restore them.