The 404 error is an error that occurs when the user's browser requests a page/URL that does not exist or no longer exists. 404 errors occur when the URL of the link includes a spelling error, when the requested web page no longer exists or when its URL has changed. It can be difficult to determine the exact origin of some of your 404 errors. However, it is important to redirect them.
To do so, go to your administration area in the SEO > 404 Monitor > Set Up > List of 404 errors tab.
You can also find the 404 error management section via the Configuration (cogwheel) > Manage redirections tab.
To redirect your 404 errors (in the URL to redirect column on the left), click on Add in the Redirection URL column (middle), and insert the URL of your new page.
💡 Good to know
- To redirect a page to your homepage, click Add and simply insert a forward slash ("/").
- To verify that a redirection is working properly, after adding the redirection URL, click on the original URL (left column) and verify that you are redirected to the new URL.
- Not every URL that comes up as a 404 error in your manager is problematic. It can be a URL requested by external services, and these requests can be made in any form and by any service.
- As a general rule, a URL that does not "ring any bell" (= it is not a URL from your store, or it is not a URL from a service you use) does not need to be redirected and can be deleted. Those URLs will simply come back from time to time. The most common examples are URLs like /wp/login, /xmlrpc.php, etc. They do not exist on your store, but bad crawling robots might try to request them.
💬 Feel free to contact your Business Coaches if you have any questions!