Semalt Digital Expert Explains What 404 Errors Mean For SEO

23.05.2018

Semalt Digital Expert Explains What
404 Errors Mean For SEO

What causes 404 not found errors? Are they going to hurt my ranking? These questions keep lingering in brand
managers' minds when "404 not found" errors come up.

When your page returns 404 errors, the disruptions are threatening to UX (user experience). Every time a visitor
gets error 404, he/she is forced to reassess and backtrack, which means leaving your page. For brand managers or
digital marketers, the errors cause panic when they get spotted in webmaster tools. To avoid these problems,
Michael Brown, the Customer Success Manager of Semalt Digital Services, comprehensively review what 404
errors mean to your SEO and how to eliminate their undesirable in uence.

How to nd 404 errors?

Utilize Google Webmaster Tools

This is one of the best methods of detecting the errors directly from Google. You only need to log into your
webmaster tools, go to Crawl and click Crawl Errors. All the missing URLs will appear on the Not Found Section. You
can even check on the graph of the errors over time for better analysis.

Broken link nders

Today, there are many browser extensions and even free websites such as Validator.w3org and Check My Links.
These will easily identify broken links in your website.

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Using Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Similar to Webmaster Tools, SEO Spider helps you see all the 404 not
found errors. Download the application. Install SEO Spider and enter
your website, then click Crawl. 404 errors will appear in the Status Code
tab. You can also export the report as a .csv le.

What 404 errors mean to SEO and why you need to
act promptly?

Google appreciates that 404 not found errors are at times inevitable.
Therefore, your website will not be de-indexed or penalized. However,
because Google's main focus is delivering quality, your SEO is likely to suffer a lot. As Google bots crawl internal
links of your page, you will be marked as a party not interested in delivering better user experience. Over time,
Google will stop crawling your pages and traf c will drop drastically.

Marketers should be worried more about the reaction of clients rather than Google bots. To your visitors, the cause
of the error does not matter at all, what they are interested in is getting the content they want. Most visitors usually
leave to a different website, follow a competitor or exit. This means loss of traf c because the client cannot take the
next step toward conversion. As a result, it is always prudent of you identify the errors as soon as possible and x
them in a prompt way.

How to x 404 not found errors?

When 404 errors occur, it is necessary to facilitate clients' ability to get back to the ow.

Use 301 permanent redirects

If a speci c page has been removed or moved, 301 redirects help to link the page to the new one. 301 redirects are
good because they do not lose page authority from the previous page.

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Utilizing Robots.txt

The robots.txt le is used to tell Google bots that speci c pages have been removed and you do not intend them to
be crawled. This is a great way to address error 404 when a lot of pages have been removed.

Correcting misspellings on your pages

If you use Webmaster Tools, you can easily identify the pages with broken links. Check these pages closely to
establish whether the link is incorrectly spelled and x them immediately.

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