Redirecting 301 for a /404.shtml page [closed]

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In terms of SEO (and what's considered as blackhat techniques by google spiders), should I avoid redirecting my 404 traffic to my main page?

Was thinking of adding this line to my .htaccess file

Redirect 301 /404.shtml /home.php

Answer 1

Don't blanket redirect all missing pages to the home page.

It's not a blackhat technique, it's just a great way to annoy bots as they have to keep following redirects and then work out if it's a soft 404 or not. Wasting their time.

Serve 404 pages when the page does not exist. And make that 404 page helpful. If it's an old page and there is a relevant page to send people to, then 301 redirect to it.

Answer 2

It should not be a problem unless your site is over loaded with broken links.

I think you should look at it from a users prospective, probably a user will prefer to get a 404 page and knows that the page is missing then be redirected to home page and then keep on looking for the original page