Delete page error 410

Hi group,

I redesigned my website early this year and I did major changes in my navigation - like deleted some pages. Now Google inform me that they still crawl those pages but they are not found (which is normal, I deleted the pages). But in some way, they are still indexed. 

Did some research and I have to add a 410 code to the URLs. When I tried, it says the code is incorrect and that is has to be a 301 or 302. What should I do? Do you guys have an alternative to definitely delete those page from my sitemap?

*I might not use all the good words to explain, i'm not an expert in SEO 🙂

Thanks!

Hi @abbiericher,

I’m happy to help you. I understand your concern. Let me help you out. Here are a couple of potential solutions:

• Unfortunately, on Squarespace, you can’t implement the 410 status code. URL Mappings only allow us to implement 301 and 302 status codes.

Consider the importance of the deleted pages:

1. If they were valuable and had good traffic, it's advisable to implement 301 redirects to relevant pages to retain traffic and preserve SEO benefits. You can watch this video to see how to add the 301 redirects.
   • Format:
     • /OLD-URL -> /NEW-URL 301
   • To reduce the impact of the redirections, make sure you replace the old URLs from the other posts/pages (internal links if you've) with the new URLs.

2. If they weren't significant and had minimal traffic, you can submit URL removal requests for the deleted pages via Google Search Console, and Google will remove those pages from the index and search results.

   • Google Search Console's screenshot: https://prnt.sc/TbkdDzLpeXK0   

   • Removals in Google Search Console: https://youtu.be/h223mCgbmf4   

• After submitting the URL removal request, remove all the internal links (if you have any) to those pages so that Google doesn’t crawl them.

If you require further clarification, please don't hesitate to ask.

Thanks,
Sadul Sifat.