How to fix the error 404

The famous 404 error is an HTTP status code indicating that the page you are trying to access cannot be found.

The 404 is one of the most common mistakes that can return a web and can have more than one cause. According to App Development Company in Auckland, these errors do not affect the positioning of a web. But even without a direct effect on the positioning of a web, they do affect the user experience and therefore can have a negative effect on the visits of the web.

In this post, we will explain the causes and solutions of these errors in order to understand them better, and then we will see how to detect them.

404 error solution

Cause: A page / web entry removed: This error occurs when we remove a page or entry of our site that search engines have already indexed.

Solution: If the page / deleted entry may be replaced by another, a redirect from the old URL must be made to the new. However, if the content has been permanently deleted, it can be shown the error 404.

Cause: An external link points to a deleted page: The error occurs when an external web link points to a page or deleted entry of our website. The visitor is then encounters the 404 error.

Solution: In this case, we recommend a redirection since the external link loses its value to bring to an error page.

Cause: Changing the URL of a page.

Solution: make 301 redirect the old url to the new in the .htaccess file. Searchers removed from the index the old url indexing new and transferring the SEO value of the old to the new.

Cause: deleted image.

Solution: Replace the image with another or reloads the previous one.

Cause: bad link written: can happen when we link another page of our web write the url wrong, or that this happens from an external page.

Solution: In the case of internal link, just have to retype it correctly. In the case of an external link, we can do a 301 redirect that poorly drafted into the correct link.

Detect 404s

To be aware of whether our website is returning 404s search engines and users, we must make periodic checks. There are (free and paid) tools with which to track a web page to monitor errors.

Our SEO Company in Auckland department recommends the following:

Google Search Google Webmaster Tools Console before: to access the property, in the "Tracking" section have "Crawl Errors". Errors, codes thereof and the source is displayed.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider: There are two versions of this program, free and paid. With the first, we can analyze up to 500 pages of a website. In the "Response Codes" section you can see the errors by code.

Sistrix: in this case is a payment tool. With the Optimizer we can see we have 404 errors on the website.

Bonus: Creating a useful 404 page

404 page is what the user will see when you access a url to return the HTTP status 404. While this page does not provide useful information, users often leave the site. So it is advisable to create a custom 404 page that helps users and provide useful content to continue browsing our website.

This page 404 may be a standard HTML page, ie, can be customized as desired.

What we consider to be effective page 404?

It should be explained by Web Design Company in Auckland to visitors who are not on the page you were seeking, but not alert with error messages.

You must have the same look and navigation than the rest of the website.

Add a link to the homepage, plus pages or important articles to the site.

Prevents search engines from indexing the page 404.

Make sure that when the page is displayed 404, should be displayed HTTP 404 status code from the server.