Lots of 301 Redirect

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Arifur Rahman (Tanu): Is this is a bad SEO practice if I 301 redirect more than 5 hundred 404 error pages to my home page ??
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  Jim Munro: GWMT might spit them back at you as soft 404's. I am not an expert but I've done this in the past. It seemed like a good idea at the time but I would not do it again because I don't think the outcome is better than a custom 404.
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  Arifur Rahman (Tanu): +Jim Munro ;Oh! i didn't know this before. I just see the soft 404 error now and it seems like you are absolutely right (still there are no listing though).
  I already redirect 200 pages this week.
  We have a custom 404 pages. Do you suggest me to redirect the pages to error page Or left the not found listing as it is if there is a 404 pages showing.
  
  I have another problem that some of the pages not showing any 404 page but a blank page no header, footer, sidebar nothing. May be  ;this is happening because i have deleted the pages. We are running a classified website. So most of the products now i don't want to show. But google already listed them to not found. So what will be your best suggestion? ;
  Thank you. ;
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  Gayathri Muthusamy: 301 redirects is good idea, but you can't do it for 500 pages. It may be affect your site.
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  Arifur Rahman (Tanu): +Gayathri Muthusamy Could you please tell me more. Please see the above comments and i need a suggestion what to do next. ;
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  PromozSEO: Technically it should not make any problem to the site or ranking but indirectly it will. Because it is a question of user experience, 500 page-to-domain 301 redirection bound to affect the user experience which can bring high bounce rate (or pogo-sticking) which can adversely affect the ranking.
  
  Better redirect 404 pages to relevant/ identical pages (p-to-p redirection). And do not make all those redirection at a time. Make 10 redirection first and check how are they behaving and do the rest gradually.
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  Arifur Rahman (Tanu): +PromozSEO ;Actually the product creating some bad impact to the site reputation. So I had to delete those pages. But as you said bounce rate is really high and 78.40%. This is really very bad. But i found that after redirecting 200 pages,(may be 20-35 redirected to similar pages, but most of i had to home page) bounce rate reduced 9.20% this week. ;
  Thanks a lot for your most valuable suggestion.
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  Tim Capper: Why not create a 404 page specifically for those "bad products"
  
  On the page, explain that you no longer stock this product and that these are similar products that they might like.
  
  This way, people understand what has happened to the product and they can then carry on to the suggested products, go to the home or leave.
  
  Better user experience all round ;
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  Arifur Rahman (Tanu): +Tim Capper Wow Great IDEA !!!!! ;
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  Tim Capper: Pleasure +Arifur Rahman ;