: SEO effect of redirecting to 404 page In a dynamically generated site (PHP, Python, pick your poison), 404 pages are normally handled dynamically to simply send a 404 header and display some

@Samaraweera270

As a rule, I never intentionally send users to a 404. It's there as a net to bring users back into your site if they use a broken url, mis-type, or there's some temporary glitch, but it's really good to add links to the page that are helpful to users to get them back into your site.

In the case of the large site with lots of links leading to the 404, I think search engines accept that 404s happen, either because of you, or because of third-parties. It's just one of those things. However, I'd take that as an opportunity to create some category 'hub pages', which I'd focus on groups of similar content/products, and then 301 re-direct the appropriate 404-triggering urls to them - therefore giving search and users a 200 OK page, and making them useful to crawlers and other users.

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@Rivera981

You can do what you like with your 404 pages, as Google only retrieves the HTTP header, not the content.

No PageRank is assigned to the 404 page, or any of the links contained on/in it.

Redirecting to a 404 page is merely adding an additional step in the chain (request -> 301/302 -> 404), so there's no value to be gained.

Adding links to your 404 pages, especially ones to pages that are relevant is always a good idea for your visitors.

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