Why don't 404 pages disappear immediately from search results?

Channel:
United States Google Search Central
Subscribers:
751,000
Published on ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5UJVgO2v1E


Duration: 2:10
6,088 views
31

Why does Google take so long to naturally remove 404 urls? John Heard, Kansas

Have a question? Ask it in our Webmaster Help Forum: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters?hl=en

Want your question to be answered on a video like this? Follow us on Twitter and look for an announcement when we take new questions: http://twitter.com/googlewmc

More videos: http://www.youtube.com/GoogleWebmasterHelp
Webmaster Central Blog: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/
Webmaster Central: http://www.google.com/webmasters



Other Videos By Google Search Central


2011-08-18What is the ideal keyword density of a page?
2011-08-18Does translated content cause a duplicate content issue?
2011-08-18Should I care about mixed content if I offer my pages on HTTPS?
2011-08-18Should I make up filename extensions to improve my rankings?
2011-08-18How can I target parts my site to different locations?
2011-08-18Will my site's ranking be hurt if I use HTTPS instead of HTTP?
2011-08-18How can good sites that don't know about SEO rank well?
2011-08-18How can I be notified when my name is mentioned on the web?
2011-08-18Does Google treat .co as a generic TLD?
2011-08-18Do multiple links from one page to another page count?
2011-08-18Why don't 404 pages disappear immediately from search results?
2011-08-18How does Google determine the canonical source for a piece of content?
2011-08-18If I get links to a URL with and without a trailing slash, will my PageRank be split?
2011-08-17What is your advice for geotargeting sites with ccTLDs?
2011-08-17Do spelling and grammar matter when evaluating content and site quality?
2011-08-17What role does being in DMOZ play in rankings?
2011-08-17Cloaking
2011-08-17Can you explain what Google means by "trust"?
2011-08-14Is the "Panda" algorithm update affecting non-English searches?
2011-08-09Authorship markup
2011-08-09Authorship markup using URL parameters


Tags:
google
404
webmaster
tools