410 Gone is an HTTP status code that says a resource is no longer available on the server and that this is likely to be permanent. It belongs to the 4xx client errors. It is the more specific variant of 404.
At a glance
- Status code
- 410
- Class
- 4xx (client error)
- Duration
- no longer available, likely permanent
- In Google
- same as 404 and other 4xx except 429, indexed URLs are removed
- Caching
- cacheable by default
- Specification
- RFC 9110, section 15.5.11
Last checked:
What does 410 mean?
MDN says a 410 response signals that the resource is gone for good, that clients should not repeat the request and that website owners should remove or replace links that lead to it. If a server owner does not know whether the condition is temporary or permanent, 404 is the right code. RFC 9110 describes 410 as meant to tell recipients that the resource is intentionally unavailable and that remote links to it should be removed, and names limited-time promotions as a common case. It also says it is not necessary to mark all permanently unavailable resources as gone or to keep the mark for any length of time. A 410 response is cacheable by default.
| Response | Status code | Meaning per RFC 9110 | What Google does | When to use it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Not Found | 404 | no current representation found; doesn't say whether this is temporary or permanent | doesn't use the content, removes a previously indexed URL and gradually crawls it less often; newly found 404 URLs aren't processed | Page removed with no replacement |
| Gone (this term) | 410 | no longer available, likely permanently | same as 404 | same as 404; per the RFC preferred when the removal is known to be permanent |
| Soft 404 (error message or empty page) | 200 | request succeeded | detects an error page from its content, excludes it from Search and reports a soft 404 in the Page indexing report | avoid; depending on the case, return 404/410, redirect to the replacement or fix the loading problems |
| Redirect to replacement | 301 | moved permanently | follows the redirect; a strong signal that the target should be processed | Content has moved or has a clear replacement |
| Page with content | 200 | request succeeded | passes the content on to indexing; inclusion isn't guaranteed | Page exists and shows real content |
A designed error page with search and links is useful according to Google, as long as the server still returns 404 or 410. 4xx codes other than 429 don't change the site's crawl rate. Google can also flag good pages as soft 404 if they render empty or broken for Googlebot, for example because resources are blocked by robots.txt. Sources: Google Crawling Infrastructure: How HTTP status codes affect Google's crawlers (last updated 2026-02-04); Google Search Central: Troubleshoot Google Search crawling errors, soft 404 errors (last updated 2025-12-18); RFC 9110: HTTP Semantics, 15.3.1 200 OK, 15.4.2 301, 15.5.5 404, 15.5.11 410. Last checked: .
| Method | Prevents crawling? | Keeps the URL out of Search? | What Google says | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
robots.txt Disallow | yes | no, the URL can be indexed without its content if other pages link to it | used mainly to avoid overloading the server with requests; not a mechanism for keeping a page out of Google | Limiting crawler load, excluding areas from being fetched |
noindex in the robots meta tag | no, Google has to be able to fetch the page | yes | only works if the page isn't blocked by robots.txt; Google then drops the page even if other sites link to it | HTML pages that stay reachable but shouldn't show up in search results |
noindex in the X-Robots-Tag HTTP header | no, Google has to be able to fetch the URL | yes | any robots meta tag rule can also be sent as a header; same prerequisite as the meta tag | Files without an HTML head, such as PDFs, images or videos |
rel="canonical" | no | not directly; a strong signal for which of several duplicate URLs becomes canonical | helps consolidate signals such as links into the preferred URL; don't use robots.txt or noindex for canonicalization | Duplicate and very similar pages, for example from parameters |
| Status code 410 (or 404) (this term) | no, but Google gradually fetches the URL less often | yes, a previously indexed URL is removed | treats 404 and 410 the same way | Page permanently removed with no replacement |
| Password protection (login) | yes, crawlers can't reach the content | yes | one of the ways Google lists for permanent removal; authorised users see the page, crawlers don't | Private or confidential content |
| Search Console: Removals | no, Google can keep crawling the URL | hides the URL from search results for about six months | temporary only; 404/410, password protection or noindex make it permanent | Urgent cases, until a permanent measure takes effect |
robots.txt and noindex cancel each other out. If a URL is blocked by robots.txt, Google never sees the noindex, and the URL can still appear in results. Google doesn't support noindex inside the robots.txt file itself. Sources: Google Search Central: Introduction to robots.txt (last updated 2025-12-10); Google Search Central: Block Search indexing with noindex (last updated 2025-12-10); Google Search Central: Robots meta tag, data-nosnippet, and X-Robots-Tag specifications (last updated 2026-03-24); Google Search Central: How to specify a canonical URL (last updated 2026-07-10); Google Crawling Infrastructure: How HTTP status codes affect Google's crawlers (last updated 2026-02-04); Google Search Central: Remove information from Google (last updated 2025-12-10); Search Console Help: Removals and SafeSearch reports tool. Last checked: .
What does Google do with a 410?
Google’s documentation groups all 4xx status codes except 429 together. For URLs with these codes, Google does not use the content, does not index them and removes URLs already in the index. Newly found 404 pages are not processed, and the crawling frequency gradually decreases. So for Google Search the documentation treats 410 like the other 4xx codes. Articles claiming a faster removal with 410 are not backed by this documentation.
If a good replacement page exists, a 301 redirect usually serves visitors and links better than a 410.
Example
HTTP/1.1 410 Gone
Content-Type: text/html
<h1>Promotion expired</h1>
<p>This offer is no longer available. See our <a href="/offers">current offers</a>.</p>
In nginx, an entire section can be marked as gone:
location /promotions/2023/ { return 410; }
Common mistakes
- Using 410 for pages that are only briefly offline. 503 fits that case.
- Returning 410 although a replacement page exists and a 301 would be better.
- Removed URLs stay in the XML sitemap and in internal links.
- The error page returns 200 and becomes a soft 404.
Frequently asked questions
What does error 410 mean? The requested resource was removed and is likely not coming back.
Is 410 better than 404? For Google’s systems the documentation treats them the same. For people and other clients 410 is the clearer statement.
Sources
- 410 Gone – MDN Web Docsdeveloper.mozilla.org
- RFC 9110: HTTP Semantics, section 15.5.11 (410 Gone)rfc-editor.org
- How HTTP status codes affect Google's crawlers – Google Crawling Infrastructure (2026-02-04)developers.google.com
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