Designing a website without 404s

Post by bentinata » Fri, Jun 14, 2024, 11:52 AM UTC

otherme123 wrote: post #55

mvkel wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolutely right. The duplicate content flags alone will cancel everything out. I don't understand why people don't just read Google's own published guidelines ( https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-s... ) on how to properly SEO one's site. It's not some dark art. Google themselves tell you exactly how they index and why. All you have to do is read the guidelines.

In that document they explain that duplicate content is not a big deal: just set a canonical, and respond maybe with a 301. I did this during a migration of a site that used '/ /' and was changed to '/ /' with corresponding 301. The SEO not only didn't punish the migration, but it seemed to like the change (except the Bingbot, that after five years still request the old Urls). The problem I see with the OP strategy i…

Post by javier123454321 » Fri, Jun 14, 2024, 1:45 PM UTC

chrismorgan wrote: post #17

WordPress does this sort of thing, or at least can (I don’t know, I’ve only ever been involved with a couple of WordPress sites). It’s obnoxiously awful. You end up with people accidentally relying on non-canonical URLs that subsequently change in meaning, or using links that seem to work but actually give the wrong content and you don’t notice. Both of these are very often much worse than a 404. There’s also an issu…

Post by dsizzle » Fri, Jun 14, 2024, 2:06 PM UTC

mvkel wrote: post #50

lm411 wrote: post #46

I understand why the author thinks this is a good idea, but 404 exists for a reason. Literally "Not Found", not "I will guess at what you are looking for". The "implications for SEO" will almost certainly not be "positive" for quite a few reasons. As a general rule in my experience and learning, Google's black box algorithm doesn't like anything like this, and I expect you will be penalized for it. There are many goo…

This is absolutely right. The duplicate content flags alone will cancel everything out. I don't understand why people don't just read Google's own published guidelines ( https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-s... ) on how to properly SEO one's site. It's not some dark art. Google themselves tell you exactly how they index and why. All you have to do is read the guidelines.

Post by SoftTalker » Fri, Jun 14, 2024, 2:41 PM UTC

lm411 wrote: post #46

I understand why the author thinks this is a good idea, but 404 exists for a reason. Literally "Not Found", not "I will guess at what you are looking for". The "implications for SEO" will almost certainly not be "positive" for quite a few reasons. As a general rule in my experience and learning, Google's black box algorithm doesn't like anything like this, and I expect you will be penalized for it. There are many goo…

Post by llmblockchain » Fri, Jun 14, 2024, 3:21 PM UTC