I have been using the Google Webmaster tools to improve my sites and one of the functions is to tell you if there are links out there that are getting error 404 messages and I had a few because some of the files that were linked have been removed.
To avoid this problem I set up a redirect to my homepage so if someone clicks on the link that was giving errors, now they will go straight to the index file.
Google updated the stats on the site yesterday and it left all the 404 errors there even though now it links to the index file with no issues.
I was hoping that I could get these errors off the analytics by doing this. Is there something else I should do to correct this problem?
I am a novice by my standards so please be detailed in any responses.
The site I am referring to is http://immfinancial.com
Thanks for any input!
Wade Henderson
greg posted this at 23:39 — 21st April 2009.
He has: 1,580 posts
Joined: Nov 2005
Wouldn't it have been better to remove the links altogether, rather than make them link to the homepage?
And which links are you referring to? In your post you linked to your homepage but there is a lot of content there to have to search and find what you are referring to.
Signature links on this forum are NO-follow! - This means spam is futile!
Wade H posted this at 01:16 — 22nd April 2009.
They have: 29 posts
Joined: Mar 2009
The links I am referring to are on other peoples sites that have made an error in putting in the link to my site in their code...there are quite a few of them (over 100) so there is no way for me to fix the links on other peoples sites.
Wade
http://www.pro-bargainhunter.com
http://www.immfinancial.com
Megan posted this at 02:09 — 25th April 2009.
She has: 11,004 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
How did you redirect the links? Did you use a 301 redirect? Try checking the error codes returned when you click some of those links (there's a Firefox plugin that helps with this but I forget what it's called. I have it installed at work).
What you should do is 301 those links to the page that best matches the topic - not necessarily your home page. That will help to spread the link juice to different parts of your site.
Megan
My web design blog