301 redirect to 404 page or set status code to 404 and stay on page?
- by WPRookie82
I have a number of pages on my website that only administrators can access and access to these pages is given if a querystring value if found and correctly set. For example:
http://www.mydomain.com/show-daily-statistics?key=abc
The above link will show the content of the page but anything else such as the below will not:
http://www.mydomain.com/show-daily-statistics
Now I was thinking about what to do if search engines and/or non-admin users somehow land on these hidden pages.
I can of course either change the status code of the page to 404 or else 301 redirect to:
http://www.mydomain.com/404-error
What's the best solution in respect to Google and SEO?