404 errors directly impact both search engine optimization and user experience. When users land on a broken page, they often leave immediately, increasing bounce rates and costing you potential conversions. For search engines like Google, excessive 404 errors can waste crawl budget, break internal link pathways, and cause you to lose accumulated backlink equity if high-value URLs are removed without proper redirects.

An online retailer discontinues a popular jacket and deletes the product page at example.com/jackets/winter-coat without setting up a 301 redirect. External fashion blogs that linked to this jacket now send readers to a 404 error page. Because the link equity is lost and users bounce, the site loses both referral traffic and organic authority until the URL is redirected to the main category page or an updated product.

• Using Soft 404s: Returning a 200 OK status code on a page that displays an error message confuses search engines.
• Redirecting Everything to the Homepage: Mass redirecting dead pages to your homepage creates a poor user experience and is treated as a soft 404 by Google.
• Ignoring Broken Inbound Links: Leaving high-authority external backlinks pointing to 404 pages instead of redirecting them to relevant content.
• Neglecting Custom Error Pages: Serving a blank or default server error page instead of a branded 404 page with helpful navigation links.

404 Error FAQs

Do 404 errors hurt my site’s SEO rankings?

Isolated 404 errors are a normal part of the web and do not directly penalize your overall site. However, if important pages with high traffic or valuable backlinks return 404 errors, you will lose those rankings and link equity. Widespread broken links also hurt user experience and waste crawl budget.

What is the difference between a 404 and a 410 error?

A 404 status code means ‘Not Found’ and implies that the resource might be temporarily missing or moved. A 410 status code means ‘Gone,’ explicitly telling search engines that the page has been permanently removed and should be de-indexed faster.

What is a Soft 404 error?

A Soft 404 occurs when a page tells the user that the content does not exist, but sends a success status code (200 OK) to the search engine. This confuses crawlers and should be corrected to return a genuine 404 or 410 response.

How should I handle 404 errors on my website?

If a deleted page has a close, relevant replacement, set up a 301 permanent redirect to pass authority and help users. If the page was deleted intentionally and has no equivalent, let it serve a genuine 404 or 410 status code with a helpful custom design.