What 404 Errors Are and Why They Threaten Your Rankings

A 404 error tells the browser: the requested page does not exist. For your website, this means three problems at once.

Lost link equity: Every backlink pointing to a non-existent page goes to waste. The ranking power that link would normally pass on is completely lost. For high-quality backlinks from authoritative domains, this is significant SEO damage.

Poor user experience: Visitors who land on an error page leave your website in most cases immediately. Bounce rate rises, time on site drops — both signals that Google registers.

Wasted crawl budget: Googlebot has a limited crawl budget for every website. Every 404 page the bot visits is a wasted crawl. On large websites with hundreds of 404 errors, this can result in important pages being crawled and indexed less frequently.

Understanding the Different Types

Not every 404 is the same. The differences are relevant to your SEO strategy.

Hard 404

The server responds with HTTP status code 404. This is the correct, technically clean response to a non-existent URL. Google immediately recognizes: this page does not exist.

Soft 404

The page displays an error message in the browser but returns HTTP status code 200 (OK). Google detects the contradiction and reports the URL in Search Console as a “Soft 404.” Typical causes: empty pages, pages with minimal content, or generic error pages without the correct status code.

Soft 404s are more problematic than hard 404s because Google has to expend additional effort to identify them — and because the 200 status code suggests the page should be indexed.

410 Gone

Status code 410 means: the page once existed but has been permanently removed. The difference from 404: Google removes 410 pages from the index faster. Use this status code deliberately for pages you definitely will not restore.

How to Find 404 Errors on Your Website

Google Search Console

Your most important tool. Under “Pages” (formerly “Coverage”) you’ll find all URLs that Google identified as 404 during crawling. Search Console also shows soft 404s — pages that return a 200 status but are classified as error pages by Google.

Check this report at least monthly. Sort by date to quickly identify new 404 errors.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Crawl your entire website and filter by status code 404 in the Response Codes tab. Screaming Frog also shows you the source pages — where the broken link is located. This tells you immediately which internal links need to be corrected.

Tip: Export the results as CSV and sort by the number of incoming links. Pages with many internal links have the highest priority.

Ahrefs and Semrush

These tools go one step further: they also show external backlinks pointing to non-existent pages on your domain. This is critical, because you lose these backlinks entirely if you don’t fix the 404 errors.

In Ahrefs, find the information under “Site Audit” → “Issues” → “404 page.” In Semrush under “Site Audit” → “Errors” → “Broken internal links.”

Server Logs

Your server access logs contain every single 404 request with timestamp, requested URL, and referrer. Server logs are particularly valuable because they also show requests that Google and other crawler tools don’t capture — for example from bots that don’t appear in Search Console.

Browser Extensions

Extensions like “Check My Links” (Chrome) or “Link Checker” (Firefox) check all links on a single page in real time. Ideal for manually reviewing important pages like your homepage, service pages, or blog posts.

Step-by-Step Solution

1. Prioritize by Impact

Not every 404 error has the same urgency. Prioritize by these criteria:

Pages with backlinks: Highest priority. Link equity is actively being lost here.
Pages with traffic: Check in Google Analytics whether the URL had visitors before the 404.
Heavily internally linked pages: Many internal links to a 404 page means many broken user paths.
Pages without backlinks and without traffic: Lowest priority. A simple redirect to the homepage or a thematically relevant page is sufficient here.

2. Set Up 301 Redirects

For every deleted or moved URL, set up a 301 redirect to the appropriate new URL. Thematic relevance is critical: don’t redirect blindly to the homepage, but to the content-wise closest page.

In .htaccess (Apache):

Redirect 301 /old-page/ https://www.domain.com/new-page/

In nginx configuration:

rewrite ^/old-page/$ /new-page/ permanent;

On Cloudflare Pages: Use the _redirects file in the public directory.

Important: Avoid redirect chains (A → B → C). Every redirect should point directly to the final URL.

3. Correct Internal Links

Redirects are a workaround. The clean solution: update all internal links pointing to the old URL directly to the new URL. This avoids unnecessary redirects and reduces load time.

Use Screaming Frog or your CMS’s search function to find all pages with the broken link.

4. Create a Custom 404 Page

A well-designed 404 page catches lost visitors. It should include:

A clear error message in plain language
A search function
Links to the most important pages on your website
The main navigation
A link to the homepage

Make sure your 404 page returns HTTP status code 404 — not 200.

5. Contact Backlink Sources

For valuable external links, the effort is worthwhile: write to the website owner and ask them to update the link. Formulate the request in a friendly manner and include the correct new URL directly.

The success rate is typically 10–30 percent based on experience. For high-quality backlinks, even a low success rate is worth the effort.

6. Set Up Monitoring

Set up regular monitoring so new 404 errors don’t go unnoticed:

Search Console: Weekly check of the Pages report
Screaming Frog: Monthly full crawl
Alerts: Some SEO tools offer automatic notifications for new 404 errors

Special Cases: Relaunch, Migration, CMS Change

After a Website Relaunch

A relaunch often changes hundreds of URLs simultaneously. Create a complete mapping table before launch: old URL → new URL. Set up all redirects before the new website goes live. Test the redirects with a crawl of the old URL list.

During a Domain Migration

A domain migration is the most critical case. Here you must redirect all URLs from the old domain to the corresponding URLs on the new domain. Don’t forget to set up Google Search Console for the new domain as well, and keep the old domain as a property to monitor errors.

After CMS Changes

A CMS switch (e.g., from WordPress to Shopware) often changes the entire URL structure. Export all URLs from the old system before the switch and create the redirect map. Particularly critical: category pages, product pages, and blog posts, which often get a completely different URL structure.

Checklist: Fix 404 Errors Systematically

When Professional Help Makes Sense

Individual 404 errors are fixed quickly. Professional support is worthwhile in these situations:

After a relaunch with hundreds of changed URLs and complex redirect logic
During a domain migration, where every wrong redirect costs traffic and rankings
With soft 404 problems, which are often deep in the CMS configuration or server logic
When Search Console shows hundreds of 404 errors and you don’t know where to start
With redirect chains and loops that have built up over years

In my work as an SEO freelancer, I regularly fix 404 issues after relaunches and migrations. The systematic approach — analysis, prioritization, implementation, monitoring — makes the difference between a clean solution and an ongoing problem.

404 errors piling up on your website? Get in touch — I’ll bring order to your URL structure and protect your rankings.

Find and Fix 404 Errors