301's, 404's and duplicate content

[Mac 5]

This is an old topic that I knew I commented on a long time ago so I searched for it to reread. The comments in this post wander to many different topics.
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic...cate&&start=25

Our website has a 404 that when someone requests a page not there, will redirect to the homepage. Although this works, I don't want duplicate content. I thought a better way would be to make 301 Moved permanently redirects for any old pages no longer there go to the homepage. On any random request for a page not there, make a custom 404 error page.

On the post from Paulhiles

To perform any of the functions you've quoted above, you'll need to use server side programming.

On a Windows server the most likely choice is ASP.

I posted a link to a nifty custom404 handler in the "Programming Resources" section in Web Programming.

Here's the link below:
http://evolvedcode.net/content/code_smart404/

Would Smart404 or a custom 404 be a better option for random requests for pages? How would the custom error page not also be duplicate content? Could you put all the buttons with links to your other pages and text as the error page? I don't want to lose visitors when they see an error page. I'd like it to blend into the site.

[bhartzer]

If someone requests a page that's no longer on your site (or a page that has never existed on your site) then you should serve a custom 404 error page.

Simply create an html page with your website design and tell people on the page that the page they requested no longer exists. Offer them the option to click on a link in your navigation, go to your home page, or perhaps perform an internal search of your website. That html page can be called whatever you want--although I prefer to name it 404.html or something similar.

In your .htaccess file you can tell the web server that when it encounters a 404 error the 404.html page is displayed. The syntax is usually something like this:
ErrorDocument 404 404.html

You can learn more about it here:
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/cor...#errordocument

If you redirect the 404 errors to a web page that already exists or your home page, you might run into other issues and problems with search engine rankings. Since the web server serves up a 404 error, you should not run into any duplicate content penalties.

[greeneagle]

This concurrent thread may help:
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic...hlight=#230657

Ken

[Mac 5]

My webhost said

As far as I know, no search engine will index the content of a 404
error page. I wouldn't be worried about using your homepage as the 404
error page. If a spider crawls your site and encounters a 404 on one of
it's previously indexed pages, it will very likely just remove the page
from its index.

I am making a 301 for any old pages that have been removed. Still deciding about leaving the 404 redirected to the homepage or a custom 404 for any random page typed in that never existed.