Question

I have deleted a folder called forums from my website from 3 months. but in my Google Webmaster Tools it keeps saying that e.g. /forums/member.php?u=1092 is missing (404). is there any way to stop these messages and tell google that i am not going to re-upload it? is this going to affect on my SEO ranking?

I tried this code, but it’s not working.

RewriteRule ^forums/(.*)$ http://www.mysite.com [301, L]

Thanks.

Answer 1

Have you tried changing the status code to 410?

410 Gone

The requested resource is no longer
available at the server and no
forwarding address is known. This
condition is expected to be considered
permanent. Clients with link editing
capabilities SHOULD delete references
to the Request-URI after user
approval. If the server does not know,
or has no facility to determine,
whether or not the condition is
permanent, the status code 404 (Not
Found) SHOULD be used instead. This
response is cacheable unless indicated
otherwise.

More detail available in the rfc.