A 404 error means a visitor landed on a page that does not exist. Maybe the URL changed, maybe a page was deleted, maybe an external site linked to an old address. From the visitor’s perspective, it is a dead end. From Google’s perspective, it is a signal that your site is not well maintained.

A few 404s are normal and not worth losing sleep over. A pattern of them is a problem.

  • Visitor experience — Someone who hits a 404 typically leaves immediately. If they arrived via a link they trusted — from a Google result, a partner site, or an email — the broken page damages your credibility
  • SEO impact — Google crawls your site and follows links. When it repeatedly encounters 404 errors, it may crawl your site less efficiently and lose confidence in the quality of your content
  • Lost link value — If external sites link to pages that no longer exist, that link value is wasted. A redirect recovers it

The most common causes

  • Changing a page or post URL (slug) without setting up a redirect
  • Deleting content without redirecting the old address
  • Restructuring site navigation or category URLs
  • Typos in internal links
  • Migrating to a new domain or host without proper redirect mapping

How to fix them

When a page moves or is deleted, set up a 301 redirect from the old URL to the most relevant existing page. This tells browsers and search engines that the content has permanently moved and passes the original page’s value to the new location.

Google Search Console shows 404 errors found during crawling — it is the most reliable source for identifying what needs fixing. Regular monitoring catches issues before they accumulate.

Broken links are checked as part of our website checkup and addressed in ongoing WordPress maintenance. More in the maintenance knowledge base.