What’s 404 Error?

Many of us have been experiencing 404- not found error message. While the people consider it as a rubbish thing, it has a vital role in the internet. Through this article, we will discuss the importance of 404 error pages, tools for finding them and some creative solutions that will help the visitors in engaging on the website.

Importance of 404 errors

404 error messages are used primarily to inform the visitors/users that either:

·         A missing page or file that was either move or remove from the site.

·         A change to the permalink structure of the site.

·         A manual URL change to an individual post or the web page.

·         Invalid (misspelled or changed) links on an external site

·         A conflicting plugin

It is also very important to provide a solution and helping the visitor in finding the appropriate place or atleast the most relevant page. 404 pages are being utilized as an important branding opportunity to turn many troubles into a positive branding experience.

404 Reporting Tools

·         Google Webmaster Tools

404 data can be found by logging into your webmaster tools account, and then Crawl > Crawl Errors options on the left.  As quoted from Webmaster Tools

Generally, 404s error do not harm the website’s performance in the search engines, however, the user experiences can be improved.

At the centre of the screen URL Errors breakdown can be seen:

·         Server Errors – Request timed out or site is blocking Google.

·         Soft 404 – URL does not exist, but your server is not returning a 404 (file not found) error.

·         Not Found – URL points to a non-existent page.

·         Not Followed – URL has active content or there was a problem with redirects

·         404 Error Logger: This WordPress plugin logs any 404 header response that WordPress comes across.  You can access the data by navigating to Tools > 404 Error Log.

·         WP 404 Error Logger

Solving 404s

To solve the 404 errors, providing the users with sufficient details as to why the user did not arrive the desired page. From the point of view a user, it is important to provide the user with the clear links to back to the homepage or the most important/relevant pages. It is important not to show that the 404s are the dead end.

Adding Personality through a Custom 404 Page

Engaging the users with a custom 404 page by adding some characters as this comes as a prime opportunity to develop a brand personality. Using high quality images with a clean and consistent interface to communicate while the user is on the wrong page will be a good idea.