For a 404 Not Found Page, the appropriate meta robots tag ensures it doesn’t get indexed by search engines. Here’s the recommendation:
Meta Robots Tag for 404 Pages
- Meta Robots Tag:
noindex, nofollow
- Reason:
- Noindex: Prevents the page from being indexed, ensuring it doesn’t appear in search results.
- Nofollow: Prevents search engines from following links on the page, which might lead to irrelevant or broken pages.
Why Use noindex, nofollow
?
- No SEO Value:
- A 404 page offers no meaningful content for search engines or users to rank.
- Avoid User Confusion:
- If indexed, users may land on a page that doesn’t provide useful information.
- Crawl Budget Optimization:
- Preventing crawlers from indexing and following links on 404 pages helps allocate your crawl budget to valuable pages.
Additional Best Practices
- HTTP Status Code:
- Ensure the server returns the correct
404
HTTP status code. This tells search engines the page does not exist. - Example: Use tools like Google Search Console to verify how 404 pages are handled.
- Ensure the server returns the correct
- Provide Helpful Navigation:
- Include links to important sections of your site (e.g., home, categories) for better user experience, but these links don’t need to be followed by crawlers.
- Custom Error Page:
- Design an engaging custom 404 page with a message like “Oops! Page not found” and include a search bar or navigation links to help users.
Example Meta Tag for a 404 Page
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
Conclusion
For 404 pages, the combination of a proper HTTP status code, a noindex, nofollow
meta tag, and a user-friendly design ensures both search engines and users are handled appropriately without impacting your SEO negatively.