• About Us
  • Contributors
  • Guides
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Write for The SEM Post
  • Submit a tip or contact us!
  • Newsletters

The SEM Post

Latest News About SEO, SEM, PPC & Search Engines

  • Google
  • SEO
  • Mobile
  • Local
  • Bing
  • Pay Per Click
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • State of the Industry
You are here: Home / Google / Google Won’t Demote Pages For Linking to a 404 Page

Google Won’t Demote Pages For Linking to a 404 Page

May 4, 2017 at 2:26 am PST By Jennifer Slegg

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
  • WhatsApp
  • Evernote
  • SMS


If you happen to link to a 404 page from your site, will Google demote that page since it delivers a perceived sub-optimal user experience?  Or would linking to a page that ends up becoming a 404 just be seen as a typical thing on the web as far as Google is concerned?

I asked Gary Illyes from Google, after some SEOs were stating that linking to a 404 would cause that page’s ranks to be demoted.  And the answer is unequivocally no.

@jenstar What? No. Why on earth would that be a good idea?

— Gary Illyes ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ (@methode) April 29, 2017

Pages can go to a 404 for a number of reasons… perhaps the site was redesigned and pages weren’t all correctly redirected; perhaps the site was temporarily unavailable and was using a 404 server code; or perhaps the site is permanently offline or has switched to a domain parking page.  And many webmasters don’t monitor their outgoing links on a regular basis to catch them all.  And penalizing a site for something another website has done would be a horrible idea.

Now, from a user experience perspective, linking to a 404 page isn’t the best experience for those users, and it makes sense to periodically crawl your site and check links for 404s or other errors.  But for any larger site, linking to pages that become 404s in the future will always happen and is just what happens in an evolving web.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
  • WhatsApp
  • Evernote
  • SMS
The following two tabs change content below.
  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Google+ profileMy LinkedIn profile

Jennifer Slegg

Founder & Editor at The SEM Post
Jennifer Slegg is a longtime speaker and expert in search engine marketing, working in the industry for almost 20 years. When she isn't sitting at her desk writing and working, she can be found grabbing a latte at her local Starbucks or planning her next trip to Disneyland. She regularly speaks at Pubcon, SMX, State of Search, Brighton SEO and more, and has been presenting at conferences for over a decade.
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Google+ profileMy LinkedIn profile

Latest posts by Jennifer Slegg (see all)

  • Google Quality Rater Guidelines Update: New Introduction, Rater Bias & Political Affiliations - December 6, 2019
  • Google Updates Quality Rater Guidelines: Reputation for News Sites; Video Content Updates; Quality for Information Sites - September 13, 2019
  • Google Makes Major Changes to NoFollow, Adds Sponsored & UGC Tags - September 10, 2019
  • Google Updates Quality Rater Guidelines Targeting E-A-T, Page Quality & Interstitials - May 17, 2019
  • Google Local Service Ads Display Pricing Estimates for Specific Locations - August 31, 2018

Filed Under: Google, SEO

Sign up for our newsletter


Founder & Editor

Jennifer Slegg (2046)

Sign up for our daily news recap & weekly newsletter.


Follow us online

  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Linkedin
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Latest News

Google Quality Rater Guidelines Update: New Introduction, Rater Bias & Political Affiliations

Google has released a brand new version of the Quality Rater Guidelines, the third one this year.  … [Read More...]

Recent Posts

  • Google Quality Rater Guidelines Update: New Introduction, Rater Bias & Political Affiliations
  • Google Updates Quality Rater Guidelines: Reputation for News Sites; Video Content Updates; Quality for Information Sites
  • Google Makes Major Changes to NoFollow, Adds Sponsored & UGC Tags
  • Google Updates Quality Rater Guidelines Targeting E-A-T, Page Quality & Interstitials
  • Google Local Service Ads Display Pricing Estimates for Specific Locations
  • Google Testing “Relevant History” Section in Mobile Search Results
  • Google Converts PDFs, DOCs, XLS etc into HTML for Indexing
  • Why Google Shows Featured Snippets With Images from Another Site
  • How to Download Links Report in New Google Search Console
  • Google: Avoid Including Redirected URLs in Sitemaps

Categories

  • Affiliate Marketing
  • Amazon
  • Apple
  • Bing
  • Branding
  • Browsers
  • Chrome
  • Content Marketing
  • Design
  • Domains
  • DuckDuckGo
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Firefox
  • Foursquare
  • Google
    • Analytics
    • Google RankBrain
    • Quality Rater's Guidelines
  • History of Search
  • Industry Spotlight
  • Instagram
  • Internet Explorer
  • Links
  • Local
  • Mobile
  • Native Advertising
  • Other Search Engines
  • Pay Per Click
  • Pinterest
  • Publishers
  • Security
  • SEO
  • Snapchat
  • Social Media
  • State of the Industry
  • The SEM Post
  • Tools
  • Twitter
  • Uncategorized
  • User Experience
  • Video Marketing
  • Week in Review
  • Whitepapers
  • Wordpress
  • Yahoo
  • Yelp
  • YouTube
December 2019
MTWTFSS
« Sep  
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031 

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.org

Copyright © 2019 · News Pro Theme On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in