404 Error: What It Means and How to Fix It

Almost everyone who uses the web has seen a 404 error: you click a link and, instead of the content you expected, you get a "Page not found" message. Every website has a few addresses like that from time to time, and that is perfectly normal. But when the error shows up on a page that used to bring in search traffic, on a page other websites link to, or in the middle of a journey where a customer was about to get in touch, it costs the business leads and sales.

In this guide we cover:

• what a 404 error is, and how it differs from a soft 404 and a 410;
• why it happens and what a visitor can do when they hit one;
• how 404 errors affect SEO, and when you should actually worry;
• how to find 404 pages with Google Search Console, GA4 and crawling tools;
• how to fix them in Webflow and WordPress, and how to avoid them during a site migration;
• how to design a 404 page that brings visitors back into your site instead of losing them.

What a 404 error is and where the name comes from

A 404 error is a server response code. It means the server is up and running, it received the request, but it could not find anything at the requested address. Its full name is HTTP 404 Not Found.

Put simply, a 404 appears when someone tries to open content that does not exist. A link that points to content like that is called a broken link.

Your browser and the server talk to each other using the HTTP protocol, and the server answers every request with a three-digit code. The first digit tells you the class of response, and the other two give the exact status within that class:

• 2xx – the request succeeded. 200 means the page loaded normally;
• 3xx – a redirect. 301 is a permanent redirect to a new address, 302 is a temporary one;
• 4xx – an error on the request side. 404 means "not found";
• 5xx – a problem on the server side, for example 500 or 503.

404 vs 410 and other 4xx codes

There are a few other 4xx codes worth knowing. 403 means access to the resource is forbidden. 410 Gone means the resource has been removed and will not come back. In practice, Google treats 404 and 410 almost the same way: both codes drop the page from the index after a few crawls. That makes 410 a good fit for content you have removed deliberately and permanently, such as a product that has been discontinued and has no replacement. The full list of codes, and how Google handles each of them, is in the official Google Search Central documentation.

What a soft 404 is

There is also a situation called a soft 404. The content does not exist, but the server reports that the page loaded successfully and returns a 200 code instead of 404. The visitor sees an empty page, a "Page not found" message or a page without the content they were looking for, yet technically everything is "fine".

This is a bigger problem than a regular 404. The search engine has to guess that the page is empty, and until it does, it keeps spending crawls on it. Sometimes pages like this even get indexed and show up in search results. Soft 404s typically appear on empty category pages, on internal search pages with no results, on out-of-stock product pages that are left without any content, and on websites that redirect every non-existent address to the home page.

Why 404 errors happen

A 404 error has a handful of common causes. In most cases it is the result of routine work on the site rather than a malfunction.

The page was deleted

For example, an online store removes a product it no longer sells. Links to that product remain in reviews, social media posts and group chats, and everyone who clicks them lands on a 404.

The page moved to a different address

You decide to restructure the site, and instead of addresses like /blog/web-design your articles now live at /articles/web-design. If you did not set up redirects from the old addresses, everyone who arrives there from Google, from bookmarks or from other websites sees a 404. This is the most common cause of 404 errors at scale, and it comes up in almost every move between platforms.

The URL was changed

You publish an article, link to it from several pages, and later fix a typo in its slug. If the internal links were not updated, they now point to an address that no longer exists.

The address was typed or copied incorrectly

A visitor types an address from memory, or copies a link and accidentally drops or adds a character. Addresses that contain non-Latin characters or accented letters have their own version of this problem: when copied, they turn into long percent-encoded strings such as %C3%A9, and in messaging apps, email or text messages they sometimes get cut off halfway. That is one of the reasons we recommend short slugs in plain Latin characters, even on multilingual websites.

A technical problem on the site

A 404 can also be caused by incorrect server settings, a CMS glitch, a plugin that changes the URL structure or a routing issue. In that case there is nothing the visitor can do, and the site owner has to track down the source and fix it.

What a visitor can do when they see a 404

If you run into a 404 error on someone else's website, check the address first: a character may be missing or there may be one too many. If the address looks correct:

• reload the page, possibly after a few minutes. Sometimes the error is temporary;
• search for the content using the site's own search, if it has one. If the page has moved, you will probably find it at its new address;
• search on Google or ask an AI chatbot with web search. They can often point you to the current address;
• if you are sure the content should be there, contact the site owner through their contact page or a chat widget. They may not even know about the problem.

How 404 errors affect SEO

When a 404 is not a problem

A few broken links will not hurt your site's rankings. Google states explicitly that 404s are a normal part of a website's life: pages get deleted, products go out of stock, and that is expected. A page that returns 404 simply drops out of the index after a few crawls, and the rest of the site keeps ranking as usual.

There is also no fixed percentage threshold at which 404 errors start to cause damage. On sites where pages are added and removed all the time, such as large online stores or classified ad platforms, the 404 report in Search Console can be very long, and that is fine.

When you should worry

Problems start in three situations:

• A 404 on a page that brought in traffic. The page ranked well for relevant searches and attracted visits. Google does not penalise you for this, but the page drops out of search results, and the traffic and leads it generated disappear with it.
• A 404 on a page other websites link to. External links to a page that returns 404 do not pass authority. The site loses part of the authority it has built up over years, and that can affect its rankings.
• Many broken links inside the site. Google's crawler keeps hitting dead ends, and internal authority does not reach your important pages. On large sites this also wastes part of the crawl budget.

Even setting SEO aside, a 404 hurts the user experience. A visitor who arrives from a paid ad or a newsletter and sees "Page not found" closes the tab, and the money spent on bringing them in is wasted. The same applies to answer engines: when ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity cite a page that no longer exists, the visitor lands straight on a 404.

How to find 404 pages on your site

Google Search Console

The first tool to open is Google Search Console. In the Pages report, under Indexing, Google lists the reasons pages were not indexed. The two reasons we care about here are Not found (404) and Soft 404. Clicking either of them shows the list of affected URLs.

Two more tools in the same account:

• Crawl stats in Settings: crawl statistics broken down by response code, including how many requests ended in a 404;
• URL Inspection: a check of a single URL, including the code the server returned and where Google discovered it.

If you also get traffic from Bing, Bing Webmaster Tools has similar reports. It usually makes sense to connect both.

GA4: how many visitors actually hit a 404

Search Console shows what the crawler sees. To find out how many people run into the error, open GA4. On most sites the 404 page stays at the broken URL, but its title is fixed, for example "Page not found" or "404". In the Pages and screens report, choose the Page title dimension, filter by that title, and you will see how many views the error page received. To see which URLs are broken, add Page path as a secondary dimension, and if you want to know where visitors came from, add Page referrer.

The 404 page is one of the pages worth monitoring on a regular basis. A sudden spike in its views usually means something broke: a campaign with a wrong link, a change in site structure or a plugin that misbehaves. We explain how to bring this kind of data together in one picture in our guide to end-to-end marketing analytics.

Crawling tools

External tools crawl your site the way Google does and find broken links before Google gets to them:

• Screaming Frog SEO Spider – desktop software that crawls the site and shows every URL with its response code, plus the pages that link to it. The free version is limited to 500 URLs, which is enough for most small business websites;
• Ahrefs Webmaster Tools – free for verified site owners. It also shows external links that point to 404 pages on your site, in other words the authority you are losing;
• Semrush Site Audit – a comprehensive site check that includes broken links and redirect chains;
• Browser extensions such as Check My Links – a quick check of every link on a single page.

If you already use an SEO tool, check whether it has a broken links report before adding yet another tool to your stack.

How to fix 404 errors

The right fix depends on where the broken link is and why it broke.

An external link to a page that no longer exists

If the link sits on someone else's website, you cannot change it. You have three options:

• restore the page, if it was deleted by mistake;
• set up a 301 redirect from the old address to the most relevant page that exists today;
• contact the site owner and ask them to update the link. This sometimes works, especially with partners and suppliers.

A broken internal link

If the link goes from one page on your site to another, you have more options:

• A typo in the link – correct the address in the link itself;
• The page was deleted by mistake – restore it from your CMS trash, version history or a backup;
• The page was deleted on purpose – remove the links to it from other pages, and if there is a relevant replacement, set up a 301 redirect;
• The page moved – update internal links to the new address and add a 301 redirect from the old one;
• A technical problem – find out what causes the 404 and fix the source: routing settings, the CMS URL structure or a conflicting plugin.

It is better to update an internal link directly, even when a redirect is in place. A redirect is a safety net for links you do not control, not a substitute for a correct link. We cover how to build internal links that strengthen your key pages in our guide to internal linking and SEO.

301 redirects in Webflow

In Webflow, you set up redirects in Site settings, on the Publishing tab, in the 301 Redirects section: enter the old path and the new path, save and publish the site. You can also create pattern-based redirects. For example, when all your articles move from /blog/ to /articles/, a single rule with a regular expression replaces hundreds of individual lines. The 404 page itself lives in Webflow's Pages panel under Utility Pages, and you can design it like any other page.

Redirects and 404s in WordPress

In WordPress, many sudden 404 errors are caused by broken rewrite rules, for example after a server move or a plugin installation. The first fix to try is simple: go to Settings → Permalinks → Save Changes, without changing anything. Saving rebuilds the URL rules.

For redirects, people usually rely on a dedicated plugin such as Redirection, or on the redirect manager in the SEO plugin they already have, for example Rank Math or Yoast SEO Premium. Redirection also logs every 404 hit, so you can see which broken URLs actually get traffic. We discuss choosing plugins and building a WordPress site from scratch in our WordPress website guide.

Clean up your sitemap

Once the fixes are in place, remove the broken URLs from your XML sitemap and resubmit it in Search Console. The sitemap should only contain pages that return 200 and that you want indexed. Webflow and most WordPress SEO plugins update the sitemap automatically, but it is worth checking that no redirected pages are left in it.

How to avoid 404s during a site migration

Most large waves of 404s happen during a migration: from Wix to Webflow, from an old site to WordPress, or in a redesign that changes the navigation structure. URLs change, and if you do not plan for it in advance, the new site launches with hundreds of broken links and Google starts losing your old pages.

Build a redirect map before launch

A well-run migration includes:

• A complete list of old URLs. Pull it from a crawl of the old site, the sitemap, Search Console and GA4, so you do not miss pages that have traffic or external links;
• One-to-one mapping. For every old URL, find the matching page on the new site. If there is no match, redirect to the closest category, not to the home page;
• 301 redirects ready on launch day. Redirects need to work from the very first minute, not a week later;
• Post-launch checks. Crawl the list of old URLs and make sure each one returns a 301 and lands on a page that returns 200, without chains of several redirects in a row;
• Monitoring in the first weeks. Check Search Console and the 404 page in GA4 for URLs that did not make it into the map, and add redirects as needed.

Google has an official guide to site moves with URL changes, and it is worth reading before any migration.

URLs with non-Latin characters

If the old site had URLs with non-Latin characters or accented letters, keep in mind that different systems store them in different encodings. A redirect rule written with the plain characters will not always catch a URL that arrives percent-encoded, and vice versa. Test every redirect of this kind in a browser, and ideally use the migration as an opportunity to switch to slugs in plain Latin characters.

How to design a good 404 page

What matters technically

Rule number one: the error page must return a 404 code, not 200, otherwise search engines will see a soft 404. For the same reason, you should not redirect every non-existent URL to the home page. Google notes that such redirects may also be treated as soft 404s, and the visitor ends up on the home page with no idea what happened to the page they wanted. The right approach is for the error page to load at the same URL the visitor requested, with a 404 code.

Webflow and WordPress work this way by default when you use their built-in 404 page. Problems start when someone installs a "redirect all 404s to the home page" plugin, or builds a separate error page and redirects visitors to it.

What the page should include

You can design your 404 page however you like, but it is worth including:

• A clear message that the page was not found, in plain language and in your brand's tone of voice, without blaming the visitor;
• Site search, so visitors can find what they were looking for;
• Links to key pages: the home page, your services, popular products or the blog;
• A way to get in touch: a link to a contact form, a chat button or an email address. A quick contact option on the 404 page can turn a frustrated visitor into an enquiry;
• The site's usual header and footer, so visitors feel they are still in the same place.

That way, a visitor who hits the error has options to keep exploring your site rather than heading back to Google. A good 404 page keeps some of the visitors who would otherwise leave.

Design and accessibility

Visually, there is a lot you can do: an illustration in your brand style, a light animation or a bit of humour. Just remember that the goal is to bring the visitor back into the site, so search and links should stand out more than the joke. A heavy animation that slows down loading on mobile hurts at exactly the moment the visitor is already frustrated.

The 404 page is part of your website, so it should meet the same accessibility standards as every other page. In Europe the common reference point is WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 at level AA, and the European Accessibility Act now applies to many online services. In practice that means a clear H1, sufficient contrast, alt text for the illustration, full keyboard navigation and a correct language attribute. This is general guidance, not legal advice; check which requirements apply to your business.

How RJL Studio helps you deal with 404 errors

At RJL Studio we build and maintain websites on Webflow and WordPress, and handling 404s is a regular part of that work: crawling the site, fixing internal links, designing an accessible, on-brand 404 page and preparing a complete redirect map for every migration or redesign, so your search traffic does not disappear on launch day.

Moving to a new platform, or seeing more and more errors in Search Console? Read about our SEO services and Webflow website development, or get in touch and we will review your site together.

Frequently asked questions

Do 404 errors hurt my site's rankings?

A 404 error on its own does not hurt the rankings of your other pages. Problems start when errors appear on pages that brought in traffic, on pages other websites link to, or when the site has many broken internal links.

Do I need a redirect for every URL that returns 404?

No. Redirects matter for pages that brought in traffic, have external links or have a relevant replacement. If the problem is a typo in an internal link, fixing the link is enough. Random URLs that nobody visits can safely keep returning 404.

What is the difference between a regular 404 and a soft 404?

With a regular 404, the server returns a 404 code and honestly says the page does not exist. With a soft 404, the server returns 200 as if everything were fine, but the page is empty or missing the content people were looking for. Google reports both in Search Console, and soft 404s are the ones to fix first.

Can I redirect all 404 pages to the home page?

It is not recommended. Google may treat such redirects as soft 404s, and visitors land on the home page without understanding what happened. It is better to redirect each URL to the most relevant page, and where there is none, to show a good 404 page with search and links.

How do I check which response code a page returns?

The quickest way is your browser's developer tools, on the Network tab: reload the page and look at the status code in the first row. You can also use URL Inspection in Google Search Console, a crawler such as Screaming Frog or a browser extension that displays response codes.