404 page
Everyone knows the irritation that comes up when you land on a 404 page. But a 404 page can be optimized to avoid this irritation. In this blog you will find out what a 404 error message can mean for your SEO, how this page can be optimized, how to detect it and then solve it. But how does a visitor land on a 404 error message?
A user arrives at a 404 page when he or she tries to reach a non-existent page. A 404 is a status code or error message coming from the server. The server provides this code to the browser(Internet Explorer or Chrome). A good 404 page causes the visitor to click through to a working page on your Web site. A bad 404 page causes visitors to leave your website and look for working websites. In addition, pages with error messages also cost Google crawl budget.
Where do you find the 404 error messages?
Finding out the locations on your website where a 404 page is displayed can be done in two ways:
These crawler tools go past your website, just like crawlers from Google or Bing search engines. The 404 pages are then sorted under status codes (response codes) such as "client error" or "broken pages. In Google Search Console, Google stores all error messages its crawlers encounter while indexing the website. On GSC, you often see more information than on other crawler tools, since Google crawls much more broadly. In fact, Google may land on a page that no longer exists. External links are links to your website from another website. You can also see the location of these links in GSC.
Checking 404 error messages
Within Google Search Console there may be dated error messages. It is wise to check the error messages because they may no longer exist. Doing this manually is an eternity of work. Fortunately, there are other options:
- Reset the entire batch - The list of error messages starts back at zero and old error messages no longer exist. This is not the most tactical method.
- Download and check all error messages - You can download the list within GSC and then run it through Screamfrog. From this you will see which have been checked and which have not.
Optimization 404 page
You can optimize a 404 page so that visitors who land here don't click away right away. Here are some tips:
- Write a friendly (humorous) message
- Offer a contact form and include key contact information
- Display links to the most important pages of your website, these can be the most read categories
- Display links to key products or blogs on your website
- Try giving the 404 page the same theme as your website, so visitors are less likely to realize it is an error message, this lowers the bounce rate
