Error : How To Solve 404 Error Problem For Your Website

One of the most annoying things is when you visit any website and see the 404 error. Are you thinking about your website? Have you checked the Google Search console about the crawl errors? If you noticed the 404 error on few pages of your website then you should solve 404 error problem as soon as possible.

It’s very important to maintain the best user experience on your website. No one would like to see the “404 error not found page” when they try to visit your website. Are you seeking for the cause of this error? Did you get any?

How To Fix 404 Error On My Website

If your readers have complained about the 404 error on your website then you should take a quick action to remove this error. Though it’s an error to panic about.

It just instead of seeing the content, your users would see a page showing a 404 error. It doesn’t affect the SEO of your website. But if your website has the broken links then it does affect.

Are you striving to solve 404 error problem? Well, I am going to let you know about the possible reasons for the occurring of this page.

Why Did You Get The 404 Error

There may be many reasons. If the link of the page is broken then it will show the error. It may be from your web server side too. If you have adjusted the permalink of the post and then after few days you changed it then the 404 error will be showing on that page.

It is possible that one of your images is showing the 404 error. It is because the link to the image is broken. You can fix the broken image links from the phpMyAdmin file. Sometimes, 404 error is shown because of the author link is broken.

You can come to know the URL of the page showing the error from the Google Search Console, Bing Webmasters. What would you do after finding the URL? How would you fix the errors?

How To Recover

Most of the people think that redirection is the only way to solve this problem. There are many things to check before redirection. Let me show the fixes:

#1. Redirection

First of all, you should check whether the content showing the 404 error exists or not. When you install WordPress for the first time then the “Hello World” is the default post showing on your website.

If you publish it and after sometimes delete it before removing the URL from the Google then it will show the error. So if the content doesn’t exist on your website then no need to do anything. Just click on the “fix” button in the Google Search Console.

If you are getting the error on your existing page then you should check the URL of the page. If you have changed the URL after publishing the post then redirect the old URL to the new one.

If you change the domain name and don’t define it in the .htaccess file then it would show the 404 error on your whole website. To do that, you should mention it and make a redirect to your new domain.

Ways to redirect:-

  • Create the redirect using the .htaccess file. You should use the 301 redirect.
  • You can use any redirect plugin which can help you to create a redirection.
  • You can redirect from the web hosting.

#2. Reset Permalinks

Sometimes the 404 error is shown because of the broken permalinks. To solve 404 error problem, you can go to the settings and set the permalinks again. It would generate a new .htaccess file in your web hosting directory.

#3. Create A 404 Error Page

To improve the user-experience, you should create a custom page which will be showing on the 404 error page. If your readers visit that any page with the error then they will see the custom error page. They won’t see the blank page showing just the 404 error.

Did You Solve 404 Error Problem on your Website

It is always important to provide the best on your website. To do so, you should check for the errors regularly. Check for the broken links using any broken link plugin or the website. Your readers won’t like to see a page showing just the 404 error page instead of the content they seek for.

If your website has many broken links then it would affect the SEO of your website. And I am sure, you won’t like that. As I have mentioned above that you should if the content is available on your website or not. After that redirection is the best solution.

by Ravi Chahar

A WordPress Professional and the LinkedIn Influencer. A coder by passion and a blogger by choice. WordPress theme development is his forte. He is your WordPress guy who will teach you how to solve WordPress errors, WordPress security issues, design issues and what not.

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6 comments

  1. Hello Ravi,

    You have made some valid points about 404 error redirect and thus should be taken as a priority. A bag full of 404 error is bad for your blog’s SEO.

    Yoast SEO do have a redirect plugin that is built inside its SEO plugin. one should always carry out and do constant checking of your blogs to help clear 404 error

    Your suggestions and solutions are valid. Have a wonderful weekend

    1. Hey Babanature,

      For a website from the SEO point of view, you should always check the 404 error. If the pages are showing this error then make sure you fix them as soon as possible.

      Your readers won’t like to see a broken page with the error. The Yoast plugin can be used to redirect the old page to the new one.
      But before redirecting, you should check about existing of the content.
      Thanks for stopping by.
      Have a great day.
      ~Ravi

  2. Hi Ravi,

    Cool. I think I have a few 404 pages that’ve been showing up.

    1. Can you suggest a few good plugins for redirecting the 404 pages?
    2. On WordPress, where do these 404 pages live? How do you build a custom 404 page so that this page shows up?

    Ash

    1. Hey Ash,

      There are many redirect plugins like redirection, simple 301 redirects etc which can help you.

      In many WordPress themes, there is a special template for the 404 error pages. You can also create the manually if you know about WordPress theme development.

      ~Ravi

  3. Hi Ravi,

    Valid point, the 404 error is must be checked by all bloggers or website owners to maintain their website health.
    The all broken links can be checked by any SEO tool like SEMrush or within your wordpress admin panel by Yoast plugin. But Yoast plugin doesn’t show the broken links inside the article, it shows you only broken permalinks of post or page.

    well explained about 404 error and ways to redirection.
    Thank you for sharing!

    Ashutosh Singh

  4. Hello, Ravi!

    Thank you again for this post!

    As I mainly work outside the blogging and over the web hosting side, 404 is quite an error which is often pop out of nowhere. ?

    And there are just a few elements that cause the error, which you smartly explained. ?

    Such 404 errors are extremely necessary to fix before letting Google to fetch the broken links.

    So for my blog, I use Google Search Console on the regular basis and hop over any issue it registers.

    Thanks for that! ?

    ~ Adeel

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