The one known as Error 404 Page Not Found is, together with HTTP Error 500, one of the most frequent on the Internet. As the name itself indicates, this is an error that is displayed when the page in question cannot find the content that we have accessed or that we are looking for through the integrated browser. As users, there is little we can do beyond checking if the address or word entered is correct . The opposite occurs if we are the owners of the website in question. If this is the case, today we will show you the solution to Error 404 and how to detect more errors of this type to avoid falling in the Google ranking.
What is Error 404 and why does it appear
The 404 Error is neither more nor less than a broken link that is generated when the content that we have accessed from our page does not exist . This can also occur from Google's own search engine, and if it is redundant, that is, the error persists or we have more pages with a 404 Error, we can fall into the search engine's positions.
The reasons for the error can be diverse:
- The link on the website is incorrect
- The page or article we are trying to access has been deleted
- The product from the online store has been deleted or is no longer available
- The integrated search engine of the web does not find references to the search terms
In the latter case, we can do little or nothing, since it depends on the search syntax. In the first two, we can follow the methods that we will explain below to prevent the 404 Error from appearing again.
How to detect Error 404 Page Not Found
Detecting 404 errors is extremely important not only for the SEO of the web, that is, the positioning in Google, but also for the user experience . That is why it is essential to look for errors to prevent Google from de-indexing them.
To find them, we can use Google Search Console (Google Webmaster Tools) through this link. In the linked report we can see all the errors of type 400 and 500 that the search engine has found on our website. The key in this last aspect is to prevent Google from finding them before they occur, which is why we recommend using tools external to Google.
We leave you with some of the best known below:
- W3C Link Checker
- Dead Link Checker
- Screaming frog
How to fix Error 404 Not Found
The solution to Error 404 may vary depending on its origin. If we have seen the Google Search Console error report, we can guide ourselves to the origin of the error in question.
The most common situations are the following:
- The link to our website from another website external to us is misspelled
- A certain link on a page or article is broken
- The permanent links on the web have changed
Solution 1 to HTTP Error 404 (misspelled link)
If we have detected that the error is due to a bad redirection from an external website, we will have to contact the owner of the same to inform them that either the syntax is incorrect (for example, www.yourxperto.com/whatspp/ instead of www.yourxperto.com/whatsapp ) or simply the page no longer exists.
A workaround would be to create a redirect from the wrong address to the correct address . To do a 301 redirect from a CMS like WordPress, we can use the free Redirection plugin.
Solution 2 to Error 404 Page Not Found (broken link)
In the case of having detected a link to a broken page, article or product, we will have to check if the original content still exists on our website .
If not, it is advisable to create it again with the same address with which Google Search Console reports the error .
Solution 3 to 404 (permalinks)
Permanent links are, in summary, the parent links of our website that remain unchanged over time. For example, www.tuexperto.com/aplicaciones , www.tuexperto.com/noticias etcetera.
To check that these are still valid, we can go to the Pages section and check the URL if we have WordPress as the main CMS .
Other errors identified by Tuexperto.com
- Error 401 Authorization Required
- HTTP error 500
- Error 503 Service Temporal and Unavailable
- Error 502 Bad Gateway