Fix the Most Overlooked Aspect of SEO – Redirects And 404

Are you running a WordPress Blog and you are really concerned about your SEO? Did you ever face a 404 error or any redirect issues? If yes, you are in the right place. This article will help you to fix the most overlooked aspect of SEO.

What are Redirects in WordPress?

Redirections on landing pages add delays to the page. Redirects are mainly used if you want to drop an old web page and still you want to take the web page visitors to another page.

You can use redirect WordPress plugins to fix those issues. With the plugins, you can easily manage 301 redirections and keep track of 404 errors.

What is a 404 Error?

Status code 404 is probably the most common HTTP error that most WordPress users face. If you’ve been using the internet and surfing a lot of websites, you may encounter 404 errors sometimes.

According to Wikipedia, The HTTP 404, 404 Not Found, 404, Page Not Found, or Server Not Found error message is a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) standard response code, in computer network communications, to indicate that the browser was able to communicate with a given server, but the server could not find what was requested.

Here are some common 404 Error you might see

• Error 404
• 404 Not Found
• 404 Error
• Error 404 Not Found
• 404 Page Not Found
• HTTP 404 Not Found
• 404 File or Directory Not Found
• HTTP 404

Do 404 Pages Hurt SEO?

Google has always pointed out that 404s are normal. According to Google “A soft 404 is a URL that returns a page telling the user that the page does not exist and also a 200-level (success) code. In some cases, it might be a page with little or no content–for example, a sparsely populated or empty page.”

Most 404 errors on your website don’t affect your site’s ranking in Google. So from a technical SEO standpoint, 404 errors aren’t horrible.

But the links that contain URLs pointing to the 404s create a bad experience. They’re called as broken links.

Fix 404 Errors

You can easily fix your errors but Incoming 404s are not easily fixable because you can’t change the URLs on other websites. Here comes the importance of 301 redirects. If you’ve deleted a page with backlinks pointing to your site, make sure you have a 301 redirect set up otherwise you will lose all your backlinks.

Best 301 Redirect Plugin

301 Redirects – Easy Redirect Manager is one of the best 301 redirect plugins. It comes with awesome features like Import/Export feature for bulk redirects management, Choose from Pages, Posts, Custom Post types, etc.

Using 301 redirects are really important because it tells search engines that the Requested URL has moved permanently. Google says If your page has moved or has a clear replacement, return a 301 (permanent redirect) to redirect the user as appropriate. To know more about 301 redirects, check this review.

The 404 Not Found message might only for you so it is recommended to clear your browser cache or try to visit the page on another browser.

Cheryl Wheeler