You have probably come across the following inscriptions on certain websites: 404 error, page not found, 404 - Page Not Found. Well, this is the well-known 404 error code. In this article, we review the reasons and disadvantages, give a couple of tips and show some creative solutions.
WHAT IS A 404 ERROR CODE?
The link embedded on our page does not point to real content.
Thecontent of the given page is no longer in place, so instead of the content, the 404 an error message is displayed. The content you're looking for was actually there at some point, but it's currently not showing up for some reason.
Reasons
Reasons for the error code may include:
- the given URL no longer exists, or the content has been deleted or moved elsewhere, so it is no longer available at this address.
- The URL is wrong, the site creators wrote it wrong,
- the visitor typed the wrong URL
- the domain no longer exists
WHY DOES IT APPEAR IN GOOGLE THEN?
The question is: why does Google include it in the results list?
Search engines (e.g. Google) work from a database, with already existing data, so the pages are not necessarily displayed in the current form. This also means that when we enter something into the Google search engine, we are not searching on the Internet, but in the Google database. When that URL was entered into the database, it probably still contained real content.
Disadvantages
What was your reaction when you ran into such a site? Chances are (like everyone else) you turned back to the search engine and looked at the next page.
As a visitor, as a potential customer, it gives you the feeling that the content you are looking for is not available, even though it is most likely present on your website, only the URL is incorrect due to one of the problems already mentioned above. If you don't notice it and don't fix it, you can unfortunately lose customers.
Google specifically penalizes pages where this appears many times. If there are too many or frequent 404 errors on a website, it can in many cases result in a decrease in the ranking, which worsens the visibility of the website's content and thus its traffic.
BE CREATIVE WITH YOUR 404 PAGE!
The most important thing is to try to regularly monitor whether we have a faulty page. Sometimes, unfortunately, the appearance of the 404 page is unavoidable, since it is enough for the visitor to type in the URL of one of our subpages and the already mentioned number already appears.
A good solution for these situations is to create a creative, unique 404 page.
It should have a button with a link to return to the main page or to a part of the website that we define.
Get in touch with us, if you have questions or would like a scan of your website!
A FEW CREATIVE EXAMPLES FROM AROUND THE WORLD
