A high number of 404 error pages on a website will give your user a negative user experience, and they’re more likely to leave your website and go to a competitor’s website. If redirects are not implemented, this will result in 404 errors.Ĥ04 errors can have a negative effect on your website regarding both usability and the search engine. URL restructuring: if, for example, you change the name of a directory, this will result in URLs changing.If you knowingly change a URL, you should implement a redirect.

Your URLs may also be linked from external resources. If not URLs are redirected, because, for example, you want to save resources and only redirect the most important URLs, 404 errors will occur. Website relaunch or domain transfer: the URLs belonging to the previous domain should be redirected to the new site with a 301-redirect.

Deleted or removed pages: a website operator may remove a page because it is no longer up to date, for example a certain product is no longer available in an online shop.

This might be because the page no longer exists, or the URL has been changed.

That can be just as confusing.Ī 404 error message is caused when a URL is no longer accessible. However, sometimes it can be better to have a 404 error page giving users options where to navigate to next, rather than simply redirecting to a page with content that isn't relevant. It’s therefore important to quickly identify and deal with 404 errors. 404 errors can have negative effects on your website in many ways - they frustrate users and send negative signals to search engine bots. '404 – page not found' – who hasn’t seen this when browsing the internet? There’s nothing more annoying than seeing this message when you’re searching for information.

Error 404 chill not found