In this article, we are going to learn about 404 page and measures we can take if it appears to the user.
404 page
404 page is also known as the error page or we can say “page not found” page. This page will appear when the user searches or clicks on something on the website and the website doesn’t hold the information the user requested.
Why are 404 pages bad for SEO?
Showing 404 pages to the user when they requested content can be bad for SEO for a couple of reasons. One would be the poor user experience. Because, the user wanted something to check on our website and if he doesn’t get the information, the user will be disappointed.
Another reason would be the wastage of link building. Suppose, we have content on our website for desired queries by users, This will help us gain more traffic and obviously, we will have links inside the content which gains more trust in the content in the eyes of Google which results in our website growth.
Solution: Using 301 Redirect for 404 Pages
301 redirect is pretty simple. They are used to redirect to the webpage from another web page. But we need to understand how we can use it for 404 pages. 301 redirect indicates the permanent movement of web pages from one location to another which means If use falls on a web page that pre-exists and we deleted it for some purpose, whenever a user visits the page, we will redirect the user either to the home page or the desired page which linked with this.
Why does this work?
If we are redirecting the user to a new page which is an alternative to a pre-existing page, if it has more backlinks, then we will get more authority and better content. If we have better content and the backlinks in the newly updated article, it will be a positive sign for Google to update our page rankings.