How to Find and Fix 404 Errors on Your Website (Free)
Find every 404 error on your site for free, work out which ones actually matter, and fix each one the right way: a redirect, a link update, or a proper 404 status.
- A 404 on a page you removed on purpose is normal and does not hurt the rest of your site. The 404s worth fixing are the ones your own pages link to, the ones with backlinks or traffic, and soft 404s.
- Find 404s with a site crawl, then cross-check Google Search Console, which lists dead URLs that Google found through links you cannot see.
- Fix a moved page with a 301 redirect to its closest replacement, fix a broken link by updating the link itself, and leave genuinely gone pages as real 404s.
- Never redirect every dead URL to your homepage. Google treats redirects to an unrelated page as soft 404s, so you gain nothing.
- A custom 404 page must still return the 404 status code. A friendly error page that returns 200 OK is a soft 404 and can end up indexed.
404 errors build up quietly. A product gets deleted, a blog post gets renamed, a menu link keeps a typo through three redesigns. Nothing announces the breakage: visitors just start landing on dead ends, and search engines keep finding links that go nowhere.
The good news is that finding 404s is quick, free, and does not require touching your code. The part most guides skip is what comes after: not every 404 should be fixed, and the wrong fix (usually a blanket redirect to the homepage) can leave you worse off than the error itself. This tutorial covers how to find every 404 on your site, how to decide which ones matter, and the correct fix for each type.
What is a 404 error?
A 404 is an HTTP status code. When a browser or a search engine requests a URL, your server answers with a number that describes the result: 200 means the page exists, 301 means it moved permanently, and 404 means "not found". There is also 410 ("gone"), which says the page was removed deliberately; search engines treat it much like a 404.
The important distinction is between the status code and the page a visitor sees. Your site can show a friendly "page not found" design while the server still returns the correct 404 code underneath. Both parts matter, and later in this guide you will see what goes wrong when they disagree.
Which 404 problems are actually worth fixing?
A 404 by itself is not a defect. Google's documentation is clear that 404s for pages you genuinely removed are a normal part of the web and do not harm the rest of your site. What hurts is the specific situations around them. Triage your 404s into these five buckets before fixing anything:
| Problem | What it is | The right fix |
|---|---|---|
| Broken internal link | A page on your site links to a URL that returns 404 | Update or remove the link |
| Removed page with backlinks or traffic | Other sites link to a URL you deleted, or visitors still request it | 301 redirect to the closest replacement |
| Page deleted by mistake | The content should still exist | Restore the page at the same URL |
| Soft 404 | An error page that returns 200 OK instead of 404 | Fix the server or CMS so it returns a real 404 |
| Genuinely gone page | Removed on purpose, nothing links to it | Leave it as a 404 |
The first four cost you visitors, crawl budget, or the ranking value of backlinks. The fifth costs you nothing, and "fixing" it with a pointless redirect just adds clutter.
How do you find 404 errors for free?
Crawl your site
The fastest way to surface 404s is to crawl your pages the way a search engine would and record the status code of every internal link. The free 404 checker does exactly that with no signup: enter your URL and it crawls up to 10 pages, follows the internal links it finds, checks your sitemap, and lists every URL that came back 404 (or any other 4xx error) with its exact status code.
If you only want to check one important page, the broken link checker scans the internal links on a single URL and flags any that return an error. It is quicker when you already know where the problem probably is, such as a page you just edited.
Cross-check Google Search Console
A crawl finds 404s that are linked from your own pages. Google Search Console finds the rest. Open Indexing, then Pages, and look for the "Not found (404)" reason. This report lists URLs Google requested and could not find, including URLs it discovered through links on other websites, old sitemaps, or its own history of your site. Those are exactly the dead URLs a fresh crawl of your current pages can never see, and they are the ones most likely to have backlinks worth rescuing with a redirect.
Run a full audit
404s rarely travel alone. A full website audit runs 40 checks in one pass, including broken internal links across up to 10 pages on the free plan and up to 100 pages on Pro, alongside redirect, sitemap, and performance checks, with a plain-language fix instruction for each issue found.
How do you fix each type of 404?
Update the broken link
When one of your own pages links to a dead URL, fix the link itself. Edit the page and point the link at the correct destination, or remove it if there is no replacement. This is the cleanest fix because it removes the problem at the source instead of patching around it.
Redirect the removed page
When a page moved or was replaced, set up a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one. A 301 tells browsers and search engines the move is permanent, sends visitors to the right place immediately, and passes the ranking value of any backlinks to the new URL. Redirect to the closest relevant replacement: the new version of the page, the updated product, or the category that contains it.
Resist the shortcut of redirecting every dead URL to your homepage. Google's documentation on soft 404s says that a redirect to a page that does not match the original request can be treated as a soft 404, which means you lose the redirect's benefit anyway. If there is no relevant destination, a real 404 is the honest and correct answer.
Restore the page
If the content was deleted by accident and people still want it, the best fix is no redirect at all: publish the page again at the same URL. Every existing link to it starts working immediately.
Fix soft 404s
A soft 404 is an error page that returns 200 OK, which tells search engines "this page exists and is fine". They may then index your error page as if it were real content. This usually comes from a misconfigured custom error page or a CMS route that renders a "not found" template without setting the status code. The fix happens in your server or CMS configuration: make missing URLs return an actual 404 status. You can confirm the status code of any URL with the 404 checker, which reads the real HTTP response rather than what the page looks like.
Leave real 404s alone
A URL that never existed, or a page you removed on purpose with nothing linking to it, should simply return 404. That is the status code doing its job. Chasing a zero-error report leads to redirect sprawl that is harder to maintain than the errors were.
How do you add redirects on your platform?
Every major platform supports 301 redirects, but the door is in a different place on each:
- WordPress has no redirect manager in core. Use a redirect plugin, or add rules at the hosting level if your host provides a redirect panel.
- Shopify has a built-in URL redirects tool in the admin, and offers to create a redirect when you change a product or page handle.
- Webflow lets you add 301 redirects in your site settings under publishing options.
- Squarespace handles redirects through its URL mappings panel, one rule per line.
Whichever platform you use, keep the list tidy: redirect old URL to final destination in one hop, and avoid chains where one redirect points at another.
What makes a good 404 page?
Some visitors will always hit a 404, from mistyped URLs if nothing else, so the page they land on should help them recover. A good 404 page returns the real 404 status code, says plainly that the page was not found, and offers a way forward: a link to the homepage, links to your most useful pages, and a search box if your site has search. Keep your normal navigation visible so the dead end is one click deep at most.
How do you prevent 404 errors?
Most 404s come from three predictable events, and each has a cheap habit that prevents it:
- Renaming or deleting content. Add the 301 redirect in the same edit session. Doing it at the moment of change takes seconds; finding the breakage months later takes a crawl and detective work.
- Site migrations and redesigns. Build a redirect map of old URL to new URL before launch, and test it on the day. Migrations without a redirect map are the single biggest source of mass 404s.
- Ordinary drift. Schedule a periodic crawl, monthly for most sites, and skim Search Console's 404 report at the same time. Ten minutes a month keeps the list near zero. The broken links guide covers the wider monitoring routine, including external links, in more depth.
FAQ
Do 404 errors hurt SEO?
Not by themselves. Google treats 404s for removed pages as normal, and they do not lower the rankings of the rest of your site. The real costs are indirect: internal links to 404s waste crawl budget and send visitors to dead ends, and a deleted page with backlinks returns none of that link value until you redirect it. Fix those cases and ignore the harmless remainder.
What is a soft 404?
A page that looks like an error to a human but returns 200 OK to machines. Because the status code claims the page is fine, search engines may index the error page. The fix is configuration, not design: missing URLs must return a real 404 status, whatever the page looks like.
Should I redirect every 404 to my homepage?
No. Google's documentation says redirects to a page that does not match the original request can be treated as soft 404s, so the redirect earns you nothing. Redirect only where a genuinely relevant replacement exists, and let everything else return a real 404.
What is the difference between a 404 checker and a broken link checker?
Scope. The broken link checker tests the internal links on one page you specify. The 404 checker crawls up to 10 pages of your site, follows the links between them, and checks your sitemap too, so it catches dead URLs that only appear deeper in your navigation. Both are free and need no signup.
How often should I check for 404 errors?
Monthly is enough for most sites. Check weekly if you publish often or run a large store where products come and go, and always run a crawl immediately after a migration, a redesign, or a bulk content change, because that is when 404s appear in batches.
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