I did something very similar to this but I have since change the way my website works. I pulled everything from a rss after page load then I came up with a way to show a n amount of results the user might have wanted to navigate. I think my approach was cool but ultimately I think it’s better to give a 404 error then to redirect someone. Here’s the post if anyone cares https://decode.sh/redirecting-users-to-the-correct-page-afte...
Designing a website without 404s
101–109 of 109 posts
Re: Designing a website without 404s
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
What about using 302?
What about 308?
Re: Designing a website without 404s
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
I haven't work with iOS in a few years, so perhaps they are more consistent these days, but in the early days I built a web browser with a custom rendering engine to see if I could get it through review and it was accepted just fine. It was accepted just fine through several releases, in fact. According to the guidelines at the time, alternative browser engines (i.e. not WebKit) were prohibited. It should have been r…
Doing something not mentioned by the guidelines and hoping it gets through, I can understand. Doing something explicitly prohibited by the guidelines and hoping it gets through seems like an unwise use of resources.
There seemed to be no illusions around in the risk of the gamble in the OP's case. The comment states it was discussed. The consensus simply felt the gamble was worthwhile – even if they ultimately lost.
I was also well aware of and accepting of the risk in my case. I wanted to learn more about certain iOS features, and I was able to do so scratching an itch I felt like scratching. I would have still gained from the process even if it had been rejected. However, as it got approved, contrary to the guidelines, I also got a good laugh at how inconsistent review was and a nice cash bonus on top!
You win some you lose some. Such is life.
Re: Designing a website without 404s
#104I 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…
I don't understand why you think this is a bad idea - 301 redirects exist for a reason. Redirecting to what the user probably wants is better than a 404 page. That said, typically most people are going to find a site via search or clicking a link, which is why I think basically no one bothers doing this.
301 is "Moved Permanently". The content in question wasn't (necessarily) moved. If you control and know for sure that old URL was renamed to something else, then yes - 301 redirect is appropriate. But guessing and redirecting isn't that.
Re: Designing a website without 404s
#105I 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…
How is this going to affect Google's indexing of the site? They hit the front page and follow links, right? They don't try random perturbations of the URLs and see if they resolve to something else? Or do they?
No, but Google will find and spider the URLs found from at least two sources:
1) Users may (inevitably will) share links to the URLs on social media / wherever, and Googlebot et al will find those links and spider them.
2) The URLs will be sent to Google for any Chrome user with "Make searches & browsing better" setting enabled.
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/13844634?#make_sear...
Re: Designing a website without 404s
#106I have to question how many people in 2024 are navigating the internet by going to the address bar and typing “foo.com/thing-im-looking-for”
Every damn time I need to find a ticket in Jira. It's easier and faster to open a random ticket and edit the URL than it is to use the UI.
Re: Designing a website without 404s
#107Don’t listen to people telling you this is a bad idea. 301 similar 404 to the correct page and be done with it. Migrations are all too common. Google webmaster guidelines ruled and restriced creativity for long enough, so damn Google. If getting completely deindexed in Google would floor your business you got it all wrong anyway. Focusing on Google too much will get you exactly in a position where you don’t want to be. It’s their job to be able to index correctly all sorts of server configuration and assign link value correctly so their algorithms get it right. You are doing it well. Let’s just stop Google pleasing and focus on the user and good marketing
Re: Designing a website without 404s
#108Earlier 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.
If you look at the recently leaked documents Google often do not tell the truth, or the whole truth. 301s are what you are supposed to do with things like changed URLs, so I cannot see it being a problem in this case. A 301 is nor duplicate content - it is one of the things Google likes you do do to avoid duplicate content. It would probably be good to add a threshold to the similarity to prevent urls redirecting to…
I would use 308/307 over 301/302.
Semantically, using a 303 redirect might be the most appropriate signal for what they are doing.
They could redirect to a specific result page if it's a clear, unambiguous match and they could redirect to a search results page if there are other possible matches.
Re: Designing a website without 404s
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is always a possibility of a problem, even if you do everything right. If you are redirecting multiple urls to one page, for example, you may believe you are helping visitors reach the most relevant/helpful result but it could also look like you are trying to artificially boost that one page? Then there are the vagueries of a search engine becoming ever more dependent on ai where not everything makes rational s…
Do you have any evidence that redirects are bad for SEO? Redirects are a normal part of the web and Google tells you they are fine with it https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/...
No, Google are infallible and never tell lies...