410 doesn't save crawl budget faster than 404, despite the folklore

410 doesn't save crawl budget faster than 404, despite the folklore

Myth: return 410 Gone and Google stops crawling dead URLs sooner than with 404.

Reality: Google treats them almost identically. 410 is a slightly stronger "this is permanent" hint, so Google may retry a touch less. But it's a nudge, not a switch. Both URLs get re-crawled occasionally — forever — because Google checks whether the dead came back to life.

Here's the thing. People obsess over 404 versus 410 to "reclaim crawl" while leaving 50,000 soft-404s returning 200 with a "not found" page. That's the real leak: pages Google thinks are live and keeps crawling at full priority.

Use 410 when you mean permanent. Use 404 when you're unsure. Either way it's rounding error.

The budget bleeds from your 200s, not your 404s.