Google Says It Can Temporarily Protect Important URLs Returning 4xx Errors From Deindexing
TLDR
Google's Gary Illyes said Google Search can temporarily keep important URLs that return a 4xx status code in the index rather than removing them immediately.
Optimixed Overview
Optimixed's original report on this story.
Google's Gary Illyes said that when important URLs return a 4xx status code, Google Search can temporarily protect them from falling out of the index right away, so they may still appear in results for a short time. As first reported by SERoundtable, the behavior is meant to help searchers keep finding those pages.
How we got here: earlier coverage
- Oct 21Google advises sites to return 503 status codes instead of 404s when patching PHP to preserve indexation
Google recommends returning 503 status codes instead of 404s during server maintenance to prevent indexed pages from being permanently removed from search results.
- Oct 21Google advises on managing search visibility when taking a site offline for PHP2Shell patch
John Mueller provided guidance on maintaining search visibility when temporarily taking a site offline to patch the PHP2Shell vulnerability.
- Aug 31Google Redirects Hide URLs from Search Results, Complicating Ranking Analysis
Google is obscuring listing URLs via redirects to restrict bot access, making it harder for SEOs to analyze and track search rankings.
- Aug 27Google confirms deploying goto URL redirects to protect search results from abuse
Google is rolling out goto URL redirects on search result links as a technical measure against scraping and abuse, which may impact third-party SEO tracking tools.