I am new to this so I will try to explain myself clearly.
I am doing my 301 redirect from a custom 404 page. Now I got it working my question is more regarding how google would treat this. Cause we going to a 404 page would google just record it as a 40 page or would it actually record the 301? As i said I am new to this and have looked through google to try and find an answer to this.
Anyway any help or comment would be greatly appriciated. thanks in advance
Best practice in this case could be:
If the page doesn't exist, but we have new one, with highly similar content, we can make 301 redirection, simply saying: "Moved permanently", which is instructing Google to actually take new URL on account and prioritize it.
If the page doesn't exist, and we actually have no idea why someone could type this link, as this URL never existed and is just wrong, then we serve 404 "Not Found". It simply means that the URL is wrong, and someone (or some other website) has fooled you to follow this link. You shouldn't automatically redirect user from this page, but place a link to the homepage instead, so user can choose his action.
If the page doesn't exist, and we know that we had this page, but it doesn't exist, and it will not exist in the future as well (we has simply decided that we will no longer have this page), then serve 410 "Gone" page, with a link to homepage as well, and let user decide.
HTTP codes, are not just a theory, it's a standard we should use. I noticed, that many 404 pages are served without correct HTTP response code, which only suggests that there is a poor development behind it.
More about HTTP response codes here: http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html