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Optimizing Crawl Budget: 301 Redirects vs. 404/410 Errors
On my website, I manage thousands of product URLs like:
https://example.com/product/acme-555
A few years back, I added links from each product page to another URL:
https://example.com/share-it.php?product=acme-555
These URLs were merely for sharing purposes and carried ‘noindex, nofollow’ tags.
In 2019, I decided to remove these ‘share-it.php’ pages but unfortunately made a couple of poor choices:
- I implemented 301 redirects to
https://example.com/product/acme-555, thinking this might transfer some sort of SEO value. - I included these redirects in the sitemaps, assuming Googlebot would swiftly adapt to the changes.
Now, five years later, Googlebot continues to crawl these ‘share-it.php’ URLs, resulting in numerous 301 responses, which I believe are impacting my crawl budget negatively. I’ve been debating whether to switch these 301 redirects to 404 or 410 errors. Initially, I thought all options were equally detrimental to my crawl budget.
Recently, however, u/johnmu mentioned in a tweet that there’s no need to fix 404s if they’re intentional. This seems like the perfect reason to replace those 301s with 410s:
- There’s no need for SEO value transfer from ‘share-it.php’ URLs, as they weren’t externally linked and were initially marked as ‘noindex’.
- By signaling Google that these are non-existent pages, I could preserve crawl budget and avoid overloading Googlebot with excessive 301s.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this approach.
“`
2 responses to “For crawl budget, are many 301s or many 404s/410s better?”
Understanding crawl budget and how different response codes affect it is crucial for optimizing your website’s SEO performance. Let’s delve into the differences between 301 redirects and 404/410 responses and how they impact your crawl budget.
What is Crawl Budget?
Crawl budget is essentially the number of pages a search engine will crawl on your site within a given timeframe. It can be affected by several factors, including your site’s overall link profile, the health of your server, and how frequently your content changes.
301 Redirects
A 301 redirect is a permanent redirection from one URL to another. While 301 redirects are useful for preserving link equity and guiding users and search engines to new page locations, excessive 301s, especially if they are to irrelevant or dead-end pages, can be problematic:
404 vs. 410 Responses
Both 404 and 410 status codes indicate that a page is not available, but they have slight differences:
Impact on Crawl Budget
Recommendations for Your Situation
Given that your “share-it.php” pages were noindex, have no external linkage worth preserving, and are now irrelevant, switching from 301s to 410s is likely beneficial for saving crawl budget. Here are steps you can take:
This is a fascinating discussion! You’ve raised an important aspect of managing crawl budget that many webmasters overlook. Transitioning from 301 redirects to 410 errors can indeed be a smart move in your situation, especially since the original URLs were designed with a ‘noindex, nofollow’ strategy and don’t contribute any SEO value.
One thing to consider is that while 301 redirects can help preserve link equity, in cases like yours where the links have no external value, the method of communicating to Google is crucial. The 410 status clearly informs Google that the content is permanently gone, which can expedite the deindexing process and ultimately free up your crawl budget for more valuable pages.
Additionally, it might be beneficial to monitor your server logs after implementing the 410 status to see how Googlebot responds. This could provide insights into whether the change positively influences your overall crawl efficiency.
Lastly, you could also consider cleaning up any internal links pointing to these ‘share-it.php’ URLs. This way, you’re not just signaling to Google that the pages no longer exist, but you’re also preventing unnecessary crawl attempts by ensuring there are no lingering links on your site pointing to them.
Looking forward to hearing how this strategy works out for you!