Thread: broken links

Hi,
Am developing my site (see below link). Have googled it a number of times and see that the two highest pages in google are both ones that I have deleted as the site evolved. I have removed the pages from my .html folder in control panel's file manager but how can I ensure that they do not appear in google as the links are broken and they do not lead to my site?

Originally Posted by proactivator

Hi,
Am developing my site (see below link). Have googled it a number of times and see that the two highest pages in google are both ones that I have deleted as the site evolved. I have removed the pages from my .html folder in control panel's file manager but how can I ensure that they do not appear in google as the links are broken and they do not lead to my site?

I don't have an answer for you but was just thinking, wouldn't it be nice if you could somehow use that rating? I mean, what if you created a page for your site NOW, and used one of those names that has the rating? Would that work? I mean, you would then publish over whatever they are seeing so the content would be relevent to your site now... just a thought, dunno if that would work or do any good..

Hi

You should be sure to create yourself custom error pages. In your control panel you will see an icon "Error pages" once you go there you will see the below, create a page for each of the below categories, viewers coming across these pages that you have removed will be able to still get to your site ..

Error pages

With this tool you can create custom error pages to display when a user enters a wrong URL, an outdated URL or when the user is not authorized to access a specific directory of your web space.

(Bad request)(Authorization required)(Forbidden)(Wrong page)(Internal server error)

Ladyeye,
I have tried to do that and am getting nowhere. I read the tutorial and it tells one to enter one's html and then click on the options and that enters some more code. I did this for a 404 error (page not found) but when the the page was clicked in google it just showed a line of code. Eventually deleted all that I had entered in the error pages in my control panel. The result is that when I click the page in google a completely empty page comes up: not even a reference to a 404 error. This is really bad. Any idea how I can extricate myself from the mess I have created?
Thanks.

You should be able to go into your control panel and click the error pages icon, and go in there and create your own unique text for all those those error pages ... you can add more than what comes up in that text area when you create them, and one of those pages should come up for you.

Naval will likely know better how to correct this situation, hopefully he will see this thread and respond ....

Hello Ladyeye, lets hope Naval sees the thread. Its' like fishing: waiting for someone to take the bait.

Originally Posted by proactivator

Hello Ladyeye, lets hope Naval sees the thread. Its' like fishing: waiting for someone to take the bait.

lol ... that's funny, fishing is fun though right, lol .. ... you see what you need to do, is call for the "King" lol ... in the meantime did you try writing your 404 & more error pages ... ?

Hi Ladyeye,
It is a weakness of the forum system, isn't it? Sometimes the help is absolutely brilliant and at other times either no one with the relevant knowledge sees the thread or is sufficiently interested to post their ideas. It is not really a grumble because there is no way that I would have gotten this far with my site without the selfless help of others, such as yourself. I just do not have the depth of knowledge that is required to sort out the more esoteric problems. I have a wry chuckle to myself sometimes when I see someone has decided that they can be a web designer after posting a few pages without even linking corectly or optimising their pages! Confidence is a wonderful thing.

I have not tried to sort out my error pages as I am obviously doing something so wrong (and probably blindingly obvious to someone else) that I need my hand held on this one. The tutorial on this is not one of the best.
Anyway, many thanks and if you have any ideas let me know. Incidentally in the tutorial when one gets to putting in the relevant html it says first put in one's own html. What code is that, do you know?
Regards,
James.

OK - here is the definitive answer - you almost NEVER want to delete out any pages. Be very careful naming pages - and if you do need to add more pages, or a name of a page is no longer fitting - make that page some kind of info page using the same keywords - so if traffic comes to that page from the se's, you will still have them on your site - with all your navigation - and that is a good thing.

Every time you remove a page, you have to remember, someone may have had that page saved to favorites - or the se's may have been sending it traffic. Yes, you can do error pages, but you are much better off never removing pages. Plain and simple.

You might want to also go to your file manager in cpanel and look at what files linger on your drive. Just because your site no longer links to it and you have deleted it from your hard drive its probably still on the server. Especially if you are using bv or dreamweaver etc to build pages. You may not be publishing them and have changed your navigational links.. but the pages are still there.

Karen