Search engine problems please help

Hi
Newbie Question
I have noticed that the search engines have picked up pages from my site
that no longer exist. I have deleted them because subject matter is out of
date.
What is the correct procedure to get of this problem as I am properbly
missing hits to sites other pages because it comes up with 404 error on that
page link.
Do I put the page back up with a redirect to the site index page or what
advice needed from you experts out there.

Many thanks
Ian

On Mon, 8 Sep 2003 14:54:03 +0100, Ian Harris <Iharris@"removethis"ukta.u-
net.com> wrote:

I have noticed that the search engines have picked up pages from my site
that no longer exist. I have deleted them because subject matter is out
of date.

That's technically correct...

What is the correct procedure to get of this problem as I am properbly
missing hits to sites other pages because it comes up with 404 error on
that page link.
Do I put the page back up with a redirect to the site index page or what
advice needed from you experts out there.

A) If your site still talks about the subject the deleted pages did talk
about
you may use some "normal" pages providing links to the new place - the only
drawback will be that you will have to keep these pages there forever.
Another
way may be to set up the webserver to send the "moved permanently"-
errorcode -
but just if you have equally relevant pages you can point the users to.

B) If your site changed it's subject I suggest a custom 404-error-page
which does not only say "there's Error 404" but provides a link to and a
bit of info about your homepage too. Your hosting provider will for sure
have some information about how/if that's possible (AFAIK it's often quite
easy). That will give you the chance to attract some visitors which did not
really
look for the new subject of your website but are interested in that one
too.
But by and by search engines will drop those urls because there is still a
valid "Error 404" sent to their spiders (IMHO that's good - it's no longer
relevant to that specific topic).

You may get a good example for B if you go to http://www.yahoo.com/brrzfzz/

Regards
Peter