301 vs 410 redirect: What to use when removing a URL from the website

[abargmann]

We are in the process of detemining how to handle URLs that are completely removed from our website? Think of these as listings that have an expiration date (i.e. http://www.noodle.org/test-prep/tphU3/sat-group-course). What is the best practice for removing these listings (assuming not many people are linking to them externally).

• 301 to a general page (i.e. http://www.noodle.org/search/test-prep)
• Do nothing and leave them up but remove from the site map (as they are no longer useful from a user perspective)
• return a 404 or 410?

[Kara.Wallace]

Hi Alexander,

If not a lot of people are linking to them AND if the page has an expiration date of sorts, you'd probably want to 410 the page.

404 and 410 both tell Google that the page no longer exists; however, the 410 (GONE) is more specific than the 404 (NOT FOUND).

The 410 "should" naturally get the page out of Google's index faster as well.

Or, if it is an ongoing thing, you could consider changing your URL to /group-course and then just constantly change the content on that particular page, letting the URL accumulate inbound links and drive traffic... I don't know exactly how you are using the page, but just an option.

Hope this helps.

Mike

[josh-riley]

404 is a good way to tell Google that a page is gone, which will then help it drop from index. Removing it from a site map won't remove it from index.

If you can't 301 to a good page for a user experience (for example, it'd be jarring to click on a SERP for a bike tire and be 301'd to a page about women's bike shirts) then there's not a lot of value in doing so.