[Tutorial] How to fix "404" or "Page Not Found" Error

[Lunix I]

There are 4 reason why this http status code appears:

Your page was deleted from the website;
The user has typed the URL address incorrectly;
Page was moved and the redirection was configured incorrectly;
The server malfunctions (it happens very rarely).

Ideally, there shouldn’t be any links that return 404 errors on the site (or external links). But let’s be realistic if the site has more than a thousand pages, the occurrence of a 404 error can’t be avoided. It can be a bit surprising though when you find a site with a small number of pages (which means that all broken pages can be traced manually) that contain three broken backlinks to articles in the “Latest News” section of the front page.

Significant increase of 404 errors

It’s one thing when a site is bypassed, and search engine robots report on several dozens of errors, but what if this number increases by hundreds or even thousands? A prompt intervention and solution should be initiated if the number of 404 errors exceed 10% of the total number of pages on the website. There can be many reasons for the appearance of such a larger number of non-existent pages, but mostly they are related to problems with the code (for instance, these pages were created with the help of scripts and styles, and the styles are in the code of the template, and not in a separate file).

Another reason why robots bypass pages that have never been on the site is because of virus attacks (for example, placing doorway pages on the website). Even after its prevention and removal, robots will continue to bypass the created pages for some time afterwards, and this can lead to the appearance of numerous 404 errors. But, thanks to various tools, you can easily track conversions on such links.

How to detect and track down broken links

One time audit in Sitechecker helps to find out all broken pages on the website and detect where links to them are placed.

Real time monitoring helps to detect broken pages that appear during last changes you have made on the website.

This feature saved our projects from decreasing traffic a few times. If you make changes on the website often, it is better to start monitoring website’s health.