404 Pages That Help Instead of Frustrate

On this page

1. Why visitors hit 404s
2. What a helpful 404 page includes
3. Technical must-haves
4. Find and fix the causes
5. After redesigns and migrations

A 404 page appears when someone visits a URL that doesn't exist. Every site gets some 404s. What matters is whether the page helps visitors continue, and whether you fix the causes.

Why visitors hit 404s

• Pages deleted or URLs changed without redirects
• Typos in links, on your site or elsewhere
• Old links in emails, ads or printed material
• Mistyped URLs

What a helpful 404 page includes

• A friendly message that the page wasn't found
• Your normal header and navigation
• Links to popular pages: services, blog, contact
• A search box, if your site has search
• A clear way to contact you

A touch of brand personality helps, as long as it stays helpful.

A search box only helps if it returns good results; see how to improve WordPress site search.

Technical must-haves

• The page must return a real 404 status code, not a 200 "soft 404"
• Don't redirect all 404s to the homepage, which confuses visitors and search engines
• Exclude 404 pages from search indexing

Find and fix the causes

1. Check Google Search Console for "Not found (404)" pages
2. Use a crawler or plugin to find broken internal links
3. Fix internal links to point to the right pages
4. Set up 301 redirects for removed or moved pages that still get visits or have links; see 301 vs 302 redirects

After redesigns and migrations

404s often spike after URL changes. Monitor closely in the first weeks; see redesigning without losing rankings.