410 Gone
The 410 Gone HTTP status code indicates that a resource has been intentionally and permanently removed, with no forwarding address. It is a stronger signal than 404 for search engine deindexing.
While a 404 says "I cannot find this page" (which might be temporary), a 410 says "this page existed but has been deliberately and permanently removed." Google processes 410s faster than 404s for deindexing — typically within days rather than weeks.
Use 410 when: you deliberately remove content that should not be replaced (discontinued products, retracted articles, deleted user profiles), or when you want to accelerate removal from Google's index. Do not use 410 when content has moved to a new URL — use a 301 redirect instead.
In Next.js, there is no built-in 410 helper, but you can return a 410 response in Route Handlers or middleware. For API routes, return `new Response(null, { status: 410 })`. Combine with Google Search Console's URL Removal tool for fastest deindexing.
Related terms
404 Error
A 404 error is an HTTP status code indicating that the server cannot find the requested URL. It signals to search engines that the page does not exist.
HTTP Status Codes
HTTP status codes are three-digit numbers returned by a web server in response to a client request, indicating whether the request was successful, redirected, resulted in an error, or failed on the server.
301 Redirect
A 301 redirect is an HTTP status code that permanently redirects one URL to another, telling search engines to transfer ranking signals (link equity) to the new URL.
Indexation
Indexation is the process by which search engines discover, crawl, and store web pages in their database (index) so they can be returned in search results.
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