200 error message

[smurfy]

Can anyone help rectify a problem?

I run a ClipBucket website and have received a notification from Google the they are receiving a 200 instead of a 404 Error message when their robots find a video URL that no longer exists on my site. My website is constantly being penalized by way of its rank because of this.

If you can help, please can you look at this video URL that no longer exists to see what I mean. When you visit this none existing video link, it gives a Video Does Not Exist message instead of giving an 404 Error.

http://smurfymonkey.com/Meine-Katze-...vs-Sound_v8835

Help would be much appreciated as I can not afford to pay anyone to do this for me.

[smokeys_13]

If you have control over the PHP side of this site, and know whether or not it exists BEFORE any output, once you’ve discovered that it doesn’t exist use the PHP header function, to send the 404 status code.

[php]header(“HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found”);[/php]

[smurfy]

:o Thanks Smokey for the reply, but unfortunately I have no knowledge what so ever about Php or anything technical. I simply administer the website through the backend.

It is easy to discover if the video exists or not because Google is listing the problamaticeURL’s in my Webmaster tools. I can simply visit the listed URL’s to see if they exist.

Where exactly do I insert this code? Are you able to show me or guide me how to do this by way of screen shots ? I would be very grateful !

[m11]

Can you repost the URL? It was shortened so it’s hard to see how you are accessing the video. Otherwise, I think Smokey is right. If you can echo “Does Not Exist” then you can output a header in place of that.

[smurfy]

Thanks for your reply. I have taken Smokey’s advice.