404 code/header for search engines, on removed user content?
- by mowgli
I just got an email, from a former user on my website
He was complaining that Google still shows the contact page he created on my site, even though he deleted it a month ago
This is the first time in many years anyone requests this
I told him, that it's almost entirely up to Google what content it wants to keep/show and for how long. If it's deleted on the site, I can't do much, other than request a re-visit from the googlebot
The user-page already now says something like "Not found. The user has removed the content"
TL;DR:
But the question is: Should I generally add a 404 header (or other) for dynamic user content that has been removed from the site? Or could this hurt the site (SEO)?