Googlebot Answers Questions from Users

Manoj Jasra - Monday, December 01, 2008 1 Comments

Last week at the Google Webmaster Central blog, Googlebot answered a few questions related to user's issues on redirects and 404 pages. We have posted the questions that were posed to Googleblot below, for the answers check out the Google Webmaster Central Blog.

Recently, I did some spring cleaning on my site and deleted a couple of old, orphaned pages. They now return the 404 "Page not found" code. Is this ok, or have I confused you?Frankie O'Fore
I was just reading your reply to Frankie above, and it raised a couple of questions.What if I have someone linking to a page that no longer exists? How can I make sure my visitors still find what they're after? Also, what if I just move some pages around? I'd like to better organise my site, but I'm worried you'll get confused. How can I help you?
I have a problem—I live in a very dynamic part of the web, and I keep changing my mind about things. When you ask me questions, I never respond the same way twice—my top threads change every hour, and I get new content all the time! You seem like a straightforward guy who wants straightforward answers. How can I tell you when things change without confusing you?
I am the kind of site who likes to reinvent herself. I noticed that the links to me on my friends' sites are all to URLs I got rid of several redesigns ago! I had set up 301s to my new URLs for those pages, but after that I 301'ed the newer URLs to my next version. Now I'm afraid that if you follow their directions when you come to crawl, you'll end up following a string of 301s so long that by the end you won't come calling any more.
I know you must like me—you even ask me for unmodified files, like my college thesis that hasn't changed in 10 years. It's starting to be a real hassle! Is there anything I can do to prevent your taking up my lovely bandwidth?

Labels: Google