Page not Found 404 errors are very common and happen on every website at one time or another. 404 errors are the natural result of each website’s evolution and maturity.
Just like the earth is in a constant state of orbiting the sun (and we go about life without noticing), the 1.13 billion websites online today are in a constant state of movement. Some websites are being retired. Some are being launched. Some are being redesigned and rebuilt, and, some are undergoing SEO adjustments.
This flux in websites causes the addresses of pages and posts, referred to as URLs, to change or disappear. As URLs change and disappear, the website that is referenced in the original URL (page/blog post), gets tagged with Page not Found 404 errors.
URLs change when Categories and/or Tags are removed. When you have a blog post and you categorize it under “website tips”, and two months later, you realize that it should have been categorized under “SEO best practices”, you can easily change those. Removing a category however, will cause a Page not Found 404 error because Google already has it listed under the original category.
Google will add the blog post under the new category, however, it will not realize that it should remove the first listing under the removed category. (You can tell Google to replace the old URL, and we’ll get to how to tell Google that a webpage’s URL has changed below.)
Another common way that URLs get a 404 error is when pages are deleted or their status is changed to draft after having been published. I see this a lot with businesses that offer seminars, webinars, workshops, and courses. The pages get deleted or set to draft so that they no longer display on the live website. The thing is that Google has the page(s) in its listings and will continue to offer it indefinitely. When someone clicks on a link that used to point one of your webpages, Google will take them to your website and display a 404 error. That reflects poorly on your website and your image.
Same type of thing happens when employees leave. Their bio pages get deleted. Google still has them in its listings, and when someone clicks on one, they’ll be presented with a page 404 error instead. Same thing with discontinued products and services.
8 common ways that Page not Found 404s get created are when:
- Pages are deleted (i.e. events, employees, retired products and services)
- Pages URLs (slugs) are changed
- Posts are re-categorized; one or more categories removed
- Posts are re-tagged; one or more tags removed
- The author of a post is changed
- A new website is created and the page names change
- Pages are moved from one domain name to a different domain name
- Security is added to a page.
Since security was added, the http: was changed to https: at the website, but, the search engine has the http://mydomainname.com/my-web-page in its index. To a search engine, http://mydomainname.com/my-web-page and https://mydomainname.com/my-web-page are two different pages.
Why do you need to Fix Page not Found 404s?
Addressing “Page Not Found 404 errors” is a fundamental aspect of keeping your website in a healthy SEO state, and maintaining a website void of Page 404 errors helps your image. Who wants to do business with someone who has a sloppy, unkept website that periodically displays page 404s? When prospects see those, their brains assume that your work and/or your follow up is sloppy as well.
It’s good to fix a website’s Page not found 404 errors at least monthly. Here’s why:
- User Experience: Visitors encountering 404 errors can have a negative experience, potentially leading them to leave the site. Fixing these errors contributes to a positive user experience, which is a factor considered by search engines for ranking purposes. Also, with a positive user experience, visitors are likely to spend more time on your website. Time spent on a website is an SEO earning factor.
- Crawlability and Indexing: Search engine crawlers may struggle to index a site effectively if they encounter numerous 404 errors. By resolving these issues, you ensure that search engines can crawl and index your site properly, contributing to better search engine visibility.
Imagine that you are the CEO of a search engine business. It’s important to you that the websites you list in the results pages are robust and truthful. Websites with page 404s will not be given favorable positions in the search results, regardless of how wonderful the content might be. Search engines understand human behavior. They know that people will read the blog post then poke around. It is in the poking around that they might run into a page 404, and the search engine does not want that to happen. It does not want to recommend broken websites. It wants to recommend the best websites. - SEO Earning Potential: The presence of 404 errors can interfere with the SEO earning potential of your content. Each page on your website contributes to its overall SEO value, and unresolved 404 errors hinder the potential.
- Holistic SEO Approach: A holistic approach to SEO involves not only adding new optimization and content but also ensuring that the existing structure is free of errors and optimized for search engines.
- Google’s Perception: Google and other search engines consider factors like user experience and site health in their algorithms. By addressing 404 errors promptly, you demonstrate to search engines that you are committed to maintaining a healthy and user-friendly website.
Minimizing the number of page 404s on your website is aligned with SEO best practices. It reflects a positive strategic and comprehensive approach to ensuring the overall health and performance of a website in the eyes of both users and search engines.
How do you fix Page 404 errors?
You tell the search engines to go to another page instead of the broken URL. To tell the search engines, you add “redirect statements” to your website. In most cases, it is not a difficult task to add a redirect statement, but you may elect to have your web person do it for you.
If you decide to have someone else do it, provide them with the:
- Original URL
- Destination (new) URL
- Instructions on whether to unpublish the page or delete it.
If you add the redirect statement yourself, Add a 301 Redirect before deleting pages, renaming pages, removing categories, (changing URLs), and after adding security. It is a simple process.
- Upload a Redirection plugin (i.e. For WordPress users, one easy-to-use option is a plugin called “Redirection”. See image below. )
- Display the page (block post) you want to redirect
- Copy the URL and paste in a scratch note
- Display the page you want visitors to see instead
- Copy that URL and paste in the same scratch note
- Log into your WordPress Dashboard
- Go to Redirection and enter the OLD page, then the address of the new page (cut and paste them from the scratch note).
- Test that the redirect was recorded properly by opening a new web browser, entering the OLD URL, and seeing that the new destination page is displayed instead of the old.
- Once the test works, it is safe to delete the page, remove the category or tag, unpublish the page, etc.
Need help fixing your 404 errors? Call me at 508-480-8833.
Want to learn more? Read this article by Neil Patel who goes into great detail about page not found 404s.