You just encounter an Error 404 on your WordPress website and you don’t know how to redirect them?
404 Errors shows up when users can’t find a page which once exist but no more. It falls between errors like error 301, 307, 302 and so on. It create bad user experience which might leads to drops in search rankings.
We will show you how to easily track and solve Error 404 pages in WordPress
What is Error 404?
Contents
A 404 error is the standardized HTTP status code. The message is sent from the webserver of an online presence, to the web browser (usually the client) that sent the HTTP request. The browser then displays this error code.
This means that if you enter a URL of a web page that does not exist, then you’ll see a 404 page not found error.
Reasons why Error 404 was found on your websites
- The URL or its content was either deleted or moved
- The URL was written incorrectly linked incorrectly, or typed into the browser incorrectly
- Sometimes server malfunctions can also lead to 404 errors in a WordPress website.
- The requested domain name can’t be converted to an IP by the domain name system
- The entered domain name doesn’t exist
Many websites still appear in the search engine results pages (SERPs) even though they aren’t available online anymore. Many website operators don’t check their external links regularly and therefore a functioning link could easily become a dead one.
How to track the error ‘404 Not Found’
We now agree that 404 errors are bad for your site’s user experience. If users can’t find the page they are looking for, then they will likely leave your site and go to your competitors. 404 errors have a negative impact on your WordPress SEO rankings. Search engine ranking algorithm often penalize websites when they run into broken links.
let’s take a look at how you can easily track 404 pages and redirect them in WordPress. We will cover two different methods, you can use any of the two methods:
Track 404 Pages and Redirect Them in WordPress Using SEO Tools
Using Rankmath SEO Plugins
RankMath SEO for WordPress is one of the best WordPress SEO plugin that allows you to easily optimize your WordPress website for search engines and social media platforms. To explain better, Rank Math is a Search Engine Optimization plugin for WordPress that makes it easy for anyone to optimize their content with built-in suggestions based on widely-accepted best practices.
RankMath allows you to easily find pages with broken links and fix them with just a few clicks using their powerful redirection manager. it also helps you setup faster 301 redirects which helps you improve search engine rankings. You will need to install and activate the RankMath Pro plugin. For more details, please see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Once the plugin is active, go to RankMath » General Settings and setup redirection settings.
After that, you need to visit the ‘Redirection’ tab under Redirects to enable 404 logs and track pages with broken links.
Simply scroll down to the ‘Logs’ sections and make sure that the ‘404 Logs’ option is enabled. Next, select the time period to record the 404 logs using the drop-down menu.
It will show a list of all the URLs that have a 404 error, how many times the link was visited under the ‘Hits’ column, and the date when it was last visited under the ‘Last Accessed’ column.
Once you have identified the pages with broken links, you can simply redirect them by clicking the ‘Add Redirect’ button.
When you click the button, you’ll see the option to enter a target URL and select the redirection type from the drop-down menu.
RankMath can even setup the proper 301 redirects for you without any effort.
Setting up faster 301 redirects in WordPress with RankMath
RankMath allows you to setup faster redirects by going to the Settings tab and choosing the Web Server redirect method.
Using AIOSEO Plugins
Another easiest way to track and fix 404 pages on your WordPress website is by using the All in One SEO plugin for WordPress also known as AIOSEO.
All in One SEO for WordPress is the original WordPress SEO plugin started in 2007. Over 2 million smart website owners use AIOSEO to properly setup WordPress SEO, so their websites can rank higher in search engines.
AIOSEO’s WordPress SEO plugin features are highly optimized for Google and other popular search engine algorithm because they follow the most up to date SEO standards and SEO best practices.
They can honestly say that AIOSEO is the best WordPress SEO plugin in the world.
AIOSEO allows you to easily find pages with broken links and fix them with just a few clicks using their powerful redirection manager.
The best part about AIOSEO is that it helps you setup faster 301 redirects which helps you improve search engine rankings.
There is a free version of AIOSEO, but it doesn’t include 404 monitoring and redirection manager.
First, you will need to install and activate the AIOSEO Pro plugin.
Once the plugin is active, go to All in One SEO » Redirects and click the ‘Activate Redirects’ button.
Visit the ‘Settings’ tab under Redirects to enable 404 logs and track pages with broken links.
Just scroll down to the ‘Logs’ sections and make sure that the ‘404 Logs’ option is enabled.
Next, select the time period to record the 404 logs using the drop-down menu. We recommend no longer than one month for optimal server performance.
Once you are done, go ahead and click the ‘Save Changes’ button.
Now, you will see a ‘404 Logs’ tab in the Redirects section in AIOSEO.
When you first enable 404 logs, this page will not have any data. It only starts monitoring 404 pages after you enable the setting.
It will show a list of all the URLs that have a 404 error, how many times the link was visited under the ‘Hits’ column, and the date when it was last visited under the ‘Last Accessed’ column.
Once you have identified the pages with broken links, you can simply redirect them by clicking the ‘Add Redirect’ button.
When you click the button, you’ll see the option to enter a target URL and select the redirection type from the drop-down menu. For example, you can move a page permanently by selecting the 301 Moved Permanently option.
After that, click the ‘Add Redirect’ button and your broken link will now automatically redirect to the new target URL.
Track 404 Pages and Redirect Them in WordPress Using Redirection Plugins
Redirection is an advanced plugin and some beginners may find it harder to use.Redirection is the most popular redirect manager for WordPress, With it you can easily manage 301 redirections, keep track of 404 errors, and generally tidy up any loose ends your site may have.
Redirection plugin features are; It can redirect only if the user is logged in or logged out, redirect if the user is able to perform a certain capability, redirect if the user is using a certain browser, redirect if the user visited the link from another page, redirect if a particular cookie is set, redirect based on a HTTP header, redirect based on your own WordPress filter, redirect if the client IP address matches, redirect another domain if also hosted on this server, redirect if the current page is a 404
First you need to install and activate the plugin. Upon activation, go to Tools » Redirection and then scroll down to click the ‘Start Setup’ button to set up your redirects.
After that, the plugin will ask whether you would like to monitor permalink changes in WordPress and do you want to keep logs of redirects and 404 errors.
Just select the checkbox for these options and click the ‘Continue Setup’ button.
The plugin will now test the Rest API status. When the status result comes back as Good, you can click the ‘Finish Setup’ button.
After that, you can add a new redirection for your 404 pages. To start, enter the URL of the page you want to redirect in the Source URL column.
Next, select whether you’d like to exactly match the query parameter, ignore them, or pass them through to the target URL from the Query Parameter drop-down menu.
Now enter the Target URL to which the 404 page will be redirected, keep the Group option to ‘Redirection,’ and click the ‘Add Redirect’ button.
The plugin also has the option to track 404 error logs. Simply click on the ‘404s’ tab at the top, and the plugin will show you recent 404 errors that occurred on your site since you installed the plugin.
That’s all, we hope this article helped you on How to Easily Track Error 404 Pages and Redirect Them in WordPress. If you have any issue on this, You can use our comment session or join our delegate on Facebook to solve any issues related to WordPress and subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials.