Do Not Redirect to Your Start Page - Use Custom 404

Redirects should lead to the same content

If you're a web developer or designer, or simply maintain a website, you've probably found yourself in the situation where you have links in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) that, when followed, lead to 404 (page not found) pages because you've updated or moved the pages. I've had clients ask me if we can't redirect those pages to the homepage so people don't get the 404 page. I advise them not to. Why? Because a redirect should only be used on pages that redirect to the same content (ie. a new version of the page). If you are redirecting a bunch of pages to the start page Google will think you are trying to artificially boost PageRank for that page. Even worse, if the redirect returns a code 200 (page found/ OK), for the old page, it will think you are duplicating content.

The Solution?

The solution is to either leave those links alone, or, for valuable pages that have high rankings and good PR (use my PageRank Calculator to see what your PR is), build a new page with similar content and do a 301 redirect to that (learn all about Website Redirects on our Guru of Search website).