QA finding
A page that existed at the last crawl is gone
QA Warning Severity: Medium
Part of the audit Inventory. Finding id: qa.pagesRemovedSinceLastCrawl.
What it costs you
Bookmarks, links from other sites and search results for this address now end in an error, and the page loses its place in search.
What to do
If the page was removed on purpose, redirect its address to the closest replacement. If not, restore it.
What it checks
- Page gone since the last check
How to fix it
Redirect or restore the page
- Ask who removed [url] and why.
- If the content moved or was merged, add a permanent redirect from the old address to the new one.
- If it was removed by mistake, publish it again at the same address.
- If the crawl simply no longer reaches it, link it from a page that is in the navigation or add it to the sitemap.
How to check: Request [url]: it answers 200 or redirects to the replacement.
A real case
The Irish clothing shop Hairy Baby deleted subcategory pages without redirects; one of them, /funny-t-shirts, had drawn organic clicks, and its keywords and traffic were lost. The agency that later worked on the site named these deletions as the main cause of the shop's organic traffic loss.
How to verify by hand
Search Console clicks for the address over the last 90 days, and the person who removed the page.
What this relies on
A page that was indexable at the last crawl was meant to be found. If it disappears without a redirect, that is a mistake unless someone removed it on purpose.