How to Stop Deleted Page 404 Index and Crawl Issue ?

SEO Help and Tips

How to Stop Deleted Page 404 Index and Crawl Issue ?

When a post is deleted, it's generally a good practice to return a "404 Not Found" status code for the deleted post's URL. This informs search engines that the content no longer exists. However, the robots.txt file does not have direct control over the behavior of deleted posts or their visibility to search engines.

To handle deleted posts, consider the following steps:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /*404$
Allow: /

The directive "Disallow: /*404$" in your robots.txt file will not protect against deleted posts.But the purpose of the robots.txt file is to instruct search engine crawlers on which parts of your website to crawl or not to crawl. It's specifically prevents search engines from crawling and indexing URLs that end with "404". However, this directive is not related to deleted posts or protecting against them.

Return a 404 Status Code: 
When a post is deleted, make sure that the server returns a "404 Not Found" status code for the URL of the deleted post. This communicates to search engines that the content is no longer available.

Remove Internal Links: 
Update your website's internal links and navigation menus to remove links pointing to the deleted post. This helps prevent users and search engine crawlers from accessing non-existent content.

Provide a Custom 404 Error Page: 
Create a custom 404 error page that provides a user-friendly message and suggests alternative content or navigation options for visitors. This can improve the user experience when they encounter a deleted post.

Monitor and Update Sitemaps: 
Regularly update your sitemap to remove URLs of deleted posts. This helps search engines discover the changes and avoid crawling and indexing non-existent content.

By following these steps, you can handle deleted posts in a way that informs search engines and provides a better experience for your website visitors.

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