When you delete any web page of your WordPress Website, it stays there on the search engines archive index for a very long time and the users following that link notice error pages.
This lesson will guide you in two things,
- How to redirect those broken page links to something relevant?
- How to ask search engines for removing deleted pages?
Fixing Links For Deleted Pages
Link Fixer, previously known as Permalink Finder is a very useful WordPress plugin that fixes all not found errors on your website.
Simply install it from Plugins -> Add New page of your WordPress site. Upon activation, the plugin automatically redirects all broken links internally and externally i.e. your website links present on search engines and other websites to something most relevant instead of showing a 404 not found error to your visitors.
Updating Search Engines
To update search engines like Google for removing deleted posts and pages of your website from their search index, you simply need to install and activate the Remove Deleted Pages from Search Index plugin on your WordPress site.
Upon activation, the plugin implements the 410 HTTP status code for all deleted web pages of your website, as that tells search engines that the web page is no longer available and must be removed from the index.