404 pages vs a redirect to index

I was looking for some opinions on this when it comes to SEO. Which is best in your opinion and why?

At the moment we redirect to the index on our sites as that is what were used to and I am sure I remember reading that having it go back to the index will help the SE's and with link juice retention etc, but on the other hand I am thinking a 404 page would be handy for the user.

Many thanks!

 

You can use a 404 to actually make your site a bit more friendlier. A 404 with useful information and links to point your users to the right direction feels better than still being clueless and in the index page.

 

I wouldn't redirect to the homepage as it might confuse users. It also helps to have a nice 404 page with some of maybe the most popular posts/pages and then a search bar as well.

I don't believe in "SEO" when it gets to the point that it affects the user experience.

 

I agree that I wouldn't redirect ot the homepage as it might confuse people.

Also, I'm not sure what the SEO advantage would be. A 404 page is probably due to 1 of 3 reasons:

1. An external link to a page that no longer exists
2. An internal link to a page that no longer exists
3. A user error where they typed in the wrong page

So in the case of #1, it would be helpful to find out which pages get the most 404 and do a permeant redirect to the most appropriate page (maybe a topic moved, or maybe it was deleted and something saying how it was deleted, but please check out these other forum categories...'

As for #2, you should fix those on your side. And with #3, there's little you can do to stop that, so a similar solution to #1 and saying that either the post was deleted or typed in wrong would be helpful info to a user.

To find out which pages are getting 404s (and from where), you can look at your web logs, or add Google's Webmaster Tools to your site and see where there search engine crawler hits a 404.

 

Thanks, I have tried out the custom 404 error pages from vbseo but they simply wont work for me, I think I must be getting the paths wrong, I will be getting one up soon though