What is a 404 Error? How to Find and Fix Them (2026)

What is a 404 Error?

A 404 is an HTTP status code that means "Not Found." The server is reachable, the request was syntactically valid, but no resource exists at the requested URL. When a browser receives a 404, it shows the server's custom 404 page or a generic browser error page. When a crawler receives a 404, it removes the URL from its crawl queue and over time drops it from the search index.

The 404 status is distinct from the 410 (Gone) status, which means the resource existed at this URL and has been deliberately removed. In practice, search engines treat 404 and 410 almost identically, with 410 sometimes triggering slightly faster removal from the index.

How 404 Errors Happen

1. A page was deleted

The most common cause. A blog post is removed, a product is discontinued, a campaign landing page is unpublished. Any existing links to the deleted page hit a 404 every time someone clicks.

2. A page was moved without a redirect

Renaming a URL slug, restructuring categories, or migrating to a new CMS often changes URL paths. If the original URL is not redirected to the new one with a 301, the old URL returns 404. This is one of the most damaging causes because the page still exists, just at a different address, and ranking signals from the old URL evaporate.

3. Typos in URLs

Visitors typing a URL by hand may misspell it. Authors writing internal links may mistype a slug. All of these produce 404s when followed.

4. Broken internal links

An internal link pointing to a slug that no longer exists generates a 404 every time it is clicked. These are the most fixable 404s because both ends of the link are under your control.

5. Broken external backlinks

Other websites linking to your old URLs continue to send traffic to those URLs even after you remove the page. Each click results in a 404 and a missed opportunity to capture link equity.

6. Server or CMS misconfiguration

Misconfigured rewrite rules, broken plugins, or accidentally renamed template files can produce 404s for entire sections of a site.

Hard 404 vs Soft 404

Hard 404

A hard 404 is the correct, standards-compliant version. The server returns an HTTP 404 status code in the response headers. Crawlers see the 404 status and treat the URL as deliberately missing. Hard 404s are healthy when used for genuinely missing pages.

Soft 404

A soft 404 is when a page looks missing or empty to a user but the server returns an HTTP 200 OK status code instead of 404. Common examples include search result pages with no results, category pages with no items, or a redirect to the homepage when the requested URL does not exist. Google detects soft 404s through content analysis and labels them in the Pages report in Search Console. Soft 404s are problematic because they confuse the crawler, waste crawl budget, and signal poor site quality.

Do 404 Errors Hurt SEO?

404 errors have indirect but real SEO impacts:

Wasted crawl budget

Googlebot has a finite crawl budget per site. Every 404 it has to revisit consumes crawl budget that could have been spent crawling real pages.

Lost link equity

If an external site links to a page on your site that now returns 404, the ranking value of that backlink is lost. A 301 redirect to a relevant live page recaptures most of that equity. A 404 does not.

Broken internal link graph

Internal links pointing to 404s break the flow of PageRank through your site. Important pages may get less internal authority than they should.

User experience and engagement

A visitor who clicks a link and lands on a 404 typically leaves the site within seconds. Bounce rate, time on site, and pages per session all suffer.

When 404s Are Perfectly Fine

Not every 404 needs to be fixed. A 404 is the correct response for genuinely deleted pages with no relevant replacement, discontinued products that have no successor, spam or malicious URLs that crawlers attempted, and URLs from a previous CMS that have no counterpart and no inbound links worth recovering.

The key question for each 404: does anything still link to this URL, and is there a relevant live page that the linker probably wanted? If yes, fix it with a 301. If no, leave it as a 404. Forcing redirects from every 404 to the homepage creates soft 404s and confuses Google.

How to Find 404 Errors on Your Site

Google Search Console

The most authoritative source for 404s that affect SEO. Open Search Console, navigate to Indexing then Pages, and look for the "Not found (404)" bucket. This shows URLs Googlebot has actually tried to fetch and received a 404 for.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Screaming Frog crawls your site like Googlebot would and reports every 404 it encounters. It also tells you which page contains the broken internal link, which makes fixing internal references straightforward.

Ahrefs Site Audit and Semrush Site Audit

Both tools crawl your site on a schedule and report 404s in dedicated issue categories. They also surface 404s on URLs that have backlinks from other sites, the most valuable subset to fix because each one represents lost link equity.

Analytics tools

Google Analytics 4 does not track 404s natively but you can configure a custom event that fires when a custom 404 page is loaded.

How to Fix 404 Errors

Work through 404s by priority. URLs with backlinks from other sites are the highest priority. URLs with internal links from your own site are second. Random URLs with no links and no traffic can usually be left as 404.

1. 301 redirect to a relevant page

The best fix in most cases. A 301 (Moved Permanently) redirect tells browsers and crawlers that the URL has permanently moved. Most ranking signals from the old URL pass to the destination. The 301 should point to the most relevant live page, not the homepage.

2. Restore the original URL

If a page was deleted by mistake, the simplest fix is to restore the content at the original URL. The 404 disappears the moment the page returns.

3. Fix broken internal links

For 404s caused by typos or outdated internal links, edit the source page and correct the link. This stops new visitors and crawlers from hitting the 404 in the first place.

4. Leave it as 404 (deliberately)

For URLs that should genuinely no longer exist, a clean hard 404 is the correct outcome. Make sure your custom 404 page returns the correct status code and helps the visitor find their way back into your site.

How to Design a Great Custom 404 Page

A good custom 404 page should: match the rest of your site's design, clearly explain the page was not found without technical jargon, include a search box, link to your top pages or main sections, and critically return an HTTP 404 status code (not 200).

404 vs 410 vs 301 vs Soft 404

The choice between 404 and 301 matters significantly because a 301 preserves the value of any external links pointing to the old URL while a 404 lets that value dissipate.

If You Have a Framer Site

Framer added basic 404 monitoring as a feature on Advanced and Pro plans in August 2025. The feature is helpful for catching broken links surfaced by visitors, but it is limited to higher tier plans and does not surface the same 404s Googlebot encounters during indexing.

RankFrame's 404 Monitor extends 404 visibility to every Framer site regardless of plan. The plugin actively scans the live site to find broken internal links, monitors HTTP responses to detect any URLs that begin returning 404 unexpectedly, and lists every 404 alongside the referrer that triggered it. You see not just that a 404 happened, but where the visitor or crawler came from, which makes fixing the source link straightforward instead of guesswork.

The 404 Monitor also supports exception routes for intentional catch-all patterns. If you are deliberately serving 404s for certain URL patterns (old campaign paths, deprecated CMS slugs, spam crawl paths), you can mark them as exceptions so they do not clutter your active issue list. Real 404s that need attention stay in view; intentional ones are silenced cleanly.

Because RankFrame runs inside the Framer editor as a native Framer plugin, the 404 Monitor surfaces issues exactly where you can fix them. Combined with RankFrame's redirect manager, you can also resolve high priority 404s by adding a 301 redirect from inside the same panel, without needing to publish a new page. The full workflow (find, diagnose, fix) happens in one place.