Why Moz Shows 404 Errors for Pages You've Removed

Sometimes, even after you remove a page from your website, Moz shows it as a 404 error. This is not only annoying, also confusing for newbie users.

However, seeing removed pages in a Moz crawl report does not necessarily mean something is wrong with your website. In this article, I will explain why it happens, and if it's necessarily a bad thing for your website.

Moz May Still Know About Old URLs

Moz crawls websites and stores information about the URLs it discovers. If Moz found a page during a previous crawl, that URL may remain in its database even after you remove the page.

When Moz crawls the URL again, your server correctly responds with a 404 Not Found status. Moz then reports this as a 404 error because Moz doesn't know if that page has been deleted completely or if it's there for another reason why the page throws a 404.

In other words, Moz is not necessarily finding a currently active page. It may simply be revisiting a URL it discovered in the past.

Other Websites May Still Link to the Deleted Page

Another common reason is backlinks.

If another website links to a page you deleted, crawlers can still discover that URL and attempt to visit it. The same applies to old URLs that have been shared online or indexed previously.

In this situation, the 404 is technically correct. However, if the deleted page had valuable backlinks or significant traffic, redirecting it to a relevant replacement may be worth considering.

Check Your Sitemap and Internal Links

You should also make sure that your own website is not still pointing to deleted pages.

Check for old URLs in places such as:

• Your XML sitemap

• Internal links within articles

• Navigation menus

• Canonical tags

• Hreflang tags

If an intentionally deleted page is still included in your sitemap or linked internally, search engines and SEO tools will continue to crawl it.

Is a 404 Error Always Bad?

No.

A 404 response is the correct behavior when a page no longer exists and there is no relevant replacement for it. You do not need to redirect every deleted page to another page or to your homepage.

However, you should consider a 301 redirect when the removed page has a clear and relevant replacement. This can be especially useful when the old page has backlinks, traffic, or SEO value.

For example, if you delete an old product page and replace it with a newer version of the same product, redirecting the old URL to the new one makes sense.

The Bottom Line

Moz can continue showing 404 errors for pages you intentionally removed because crawlers do not immediately forget URLs they previously discovered.

Those URLs may also continue appearing because other websites link to them or because they still exist somewhere on your own site.

The most important thing is to determine whether the deleted URL should remain gone or whether it has a relevant replacement. If the page was intentionally removed and has no suitable destination, a 404 is often completely normal.