4xx Client errors
HTTP 410 Gone
HTTP 410 Gone means the resource existed but was removed on purpose and will not come back.
What 410 Gone means
A 410 is a stronger, more deliberate 404. It tells clients and crawlers to stop asking. Use it for deleted products, retired API versions or spam pages you removed.
Common causes
- Content was deleted permanently.
- An old API version was shut down.
How to fix or use it
Return 410 for URLs you know are permanently gone and that have no replacement. If there is a replacement, use 301 to it instead.
Express (Node.js) example
const removed = new Set(['/blog/old-announcement']);
app.use((req, res, next) => (removed.has(req.path) ? res.status(410).send('Gone') : next()));SEO impact
Google may drop a 410 URL from the index a little faster than a 404. Both are fine for content that is truly gone.