HARDWARE & SOFTWARE

Software Discussion => Other Software Problem => Topic started by: Lion_Heart on October 20, 2012, 10:55:02 am

Title: Difference in 404 and 410 error
Post by: Lion_Heart on October 20, 2012, 10:55:02 am
404 errors are the HTTP response codes that every web developer will know and understand: Page not found. However, it may be interpreted by search engines as 'Page not found, but we'll check back some other time'. The 410 response is supposed to mean 'Page not found, permanently'; it's a web site's way of saying that the requested URL will never exist.

Whether search engines really bother to tell the difference between these two http statuses is unclear. For example, back in late 2011 Matt Cutts presented a webmaster video in which he 'will need to check with the crawl team' if they treat 404 and 410 errors differently. He's given no public response to that, as yet.