I have 410’d a couple of pages and am just wondering how long I can expect until Google/Bing drop them from their index? It’s frustrating because they are ranking much higher than my actual site.
It's frustrating because they are ranking much higher than my actual site.[/QUOTE] Hi and welcome to the site. You do realize that, when you loose those pages, you will loose their ranking??? I would suggest that
you investigate why your new pages have a lower ranking before you delete the old ones! ?
@jennypitulaMay 22.2017 — #When we request a server for a particular page and requested page is permanently removed then 410 error is generated.
According to Google, when a page issues a 404 response, it may sometimes still recheck the page for being sure that it’s really invalid. But using the 410 response code will at least ensure that Google won’t ever go back to check that page again and Google checks important pages on the site, this is helpful for overall crawlability. If there isn’t another option and that the page cannot be redirected then the 410 response code should be used.
You have got 410 errors for a couple of pages, how many times Google/Bing will take for dropping them from index, there is no perfect answer. But I think you can try for ranking up of another pages.
@SheenaMay 25.2017 — #410 status mean that there was probably an error in the request, which prevented the server from being able to process it. 410 errors aren’t quite the same as 404 errors, which indicate the page is not found.
@DavidStathamoffJun 05.2017 — #If those pages are ranking then its a problem because it will hurt your ctc and ctc is one of the important factor for search engine rankings. So whatevere the error is if it is occuring on a page that is highly rank oin search engine it will effect whole of your site. Check this article on 27 most common WordPress errors and how to fix them.
@PaulShipmanJun 09.2017 — #With a 404, and some of the other 4xx status codes, Google will protect the page and not mark it as removed for about 24 hours.
With a 410 status code, Google will mark the page as gone as soon as the error is noticed by GoogleBot.
Matt added, although that is the case, GoogleBot will go back and check both 404 and 410 responses later to ensure the page is really not there.
Google is aware of bugs and server issues that happen and thus will check back later, several times, over the course of years, to check to see if the page is ever brought back.