In this article, we will discuss about 404 Error page – SEO.
What basically 404 error pages are? Why 404 error page is very important and how it actually helps the users to navigate through the website. We’ll cover everything you need to know about 404 error pages. And how they play into your SEO efforts i.e., 404 Error Page SEO.
What is 404 Error Page?
404 an Error Page – it returns when a correct URL is not found. More often, what happens is there could be a page. That you may had on the website but that is not existing right now. Maybe there is a possibility that the URL is incorrect or maybe a particular page that the user is finding is unavailable on the website.
In any of these cases what happens is when an incorrect URL or an error URL or a misspelling is actually given in the URL. The website has to return a 404 Error Page and that actually helps the user to inform him that the page they are looking at is actually not available on the website. And they can return back to the home page or any other page that where the links are provided on the 404 Error Page.
404 error page basically means any page when the user doesn’t find on the website they actually are directed to the 404 Error Page. From there they can come back to the website. It is considered a good practice to return a 404 error page when a page the user is looking for is not found.
Let consider, a user comes to my website. He/she is actually navigating through the different pages of my website. It may happen that he/she know that I have a link on the particular page but the page is not existing for that link. When a user clicks on that link. It should not display that the page is not found, the user should be directed to a custom-made 404 error page. Where the user is informed that the page they are looking is not available for the website and they can actually go to some other page. It could be a home page. It could be a similar page and that is precisely what 404 error page is all about and it is considered a very good practice to have a 404 error page on your website.
Why Use 404 Error Page?
An error page is called in response to a missing page. When a page is missing on the website, the user is actually directed to the 404 error page. It could be because of a broken link or a deleted page. And the user should not be left us stranded just because a broken link is available or a page is missing or a mistyped to URL. In any of these cases, the user should be directed to a 404 error page.
How a 404 Error Page Exists?
Now have a look on our website quizermania.com. Home page address of our website is https://quizermania.com/. Now, what I do is I actually give a slash and type some junk. Obviously this page is not existing. I typed some junk on the website URL https://quizermania.com/asd3r4. Now what it should do is it should return me an error page. And when I press ENTER what happens is 404 page not found is available. And what it also show is that “we are sorry but the page you are looking for it doesn’t exist” (maybe different) and we are providing some links here Home, About, Contact etc., and user can choose any of these links and go back to the site again.
Because the user has come to a 404 page – an error page where in the URL that they are looking is unavailable. Now, let’s say for example – I click on contact and the user has come to the contact page. Because the user is redirected from the 404 Error Page to a contact or whichever the user chooses.
This is actually how a 4:04 error page exists and this is actually the best practice that you need to implement on your website as an on-page optimization technique in search engine optimization.
404 Page – Best Practices
What are the best practices that you can implement on the website?
Inform the users that the page they are looking is unavailable. It is extremely important for the user to be informed that the page they are looking is unavailable. That is precisely why the 404 custom page is built and integrated on the website.
Ensure the 404 page has the same look and feel as the rest of the site.
It is the most important factor. When you have a 404 page built, designed, a custom-made one. The header, the footer, the logo should remain the same consistent with the rest of the pages. It should have the same look and feel. And in the body part you should have to mention that sorry! the page you’re looking is unavailable. And these are the some of the links where you can actually go through and navigate back to the website. It could be a home page or a services page. It could be a product page or any page that the user wants to go back. Can give about 4-5 links or even 10 links. It doesn’t matter but make sure that the look and feel of the custom-made 404 error page remains the same.
Display 404 error page and provide useful links to that. It uses to return back. Useful links other than the page that they are looking for. It could be any page where you want the user to redirect.
Ensure to inform the Google about the link change through the Google Search console. When you have a missing page or misspelled page or a page that is deleted. Login to your Google search console and actually notify Google that the page that was existing earlier doesn’t exist anymore. So that that page cannot be crawled again. These are some of the best practices that you can implement as far as on-page optimization 404 error page (404 error page SEO) is concerned.
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