Penalty for 404 Errors?

I have a site that has many pages that are regularly updated. Sometimes a page needs to be replaced with entirely new content because the old content expired. In this case, the title, content and URL all need to change. Because there are so many new pages being added, the 301 redirects would really pile-up. I have an XML sitemap that is updated every time new content is added or replaced.

It doesn't make sense to leave expired content live, but I also don't want to cause a penalty by removing pages that are no longer valid. Would having regular 404 errors from expired pages that have been removed cause a penalty with Google for the pagerank on the site?

Hi,

I would like to share you what I follow when I need to change page url entirely. Please follow this with discretion.

First thing, I don't worry about page 404 errors.

I keep original page as it is but without content and with a redirection link to new page with a javascript.

I remove the old page from XML Sitemap and add new page to it.

This way Google keeps redirecting visitors from old page to new page. Google will keep the page rank for old page for few weeks or more and you will gain page rank for new page within that time or with some more time.

You are best off keeping the pages nstead of discarding them. Keep them in an archive, if the data is out dated state it in the outdated data if possible but the more pages you have the more valuable your site.

Jonny

Just a cautionary note...

If you decide to allow the 404 errors (rather than keeping the urls or redirecting), make sure that your 404 page returns the correct (404) header code.
This is very important if you use a custom 404 page or redirect 404 errors to your home page (a very bad thing to do... In this case you should create a duplicate copy of your home page with a 404 header code, thus Google will not index the contents - so no dup' content issues).