What 404 errors mean in Search Console and why Google cares

Consider this: broken links on your website could be costing you hundreds…. maybe thousands in lost sales.

Don’t panic though – 404s happen…

…and in the next 10 minutes we’ll explain how a simple report in Google Search Console helps you catch and fix those problems.

By the end, you’ll know exactly how to resolve every 404 error to keep your visitors happy and your revenues safe.

 

404 ERRORS IN SEARCH CONSOLE

What is a 404 and why Google cares

Imagine sending someone to your shop – only to have the door slammed in their face.

That’s what a 404 error page does when a user or Google looks for a webpage that isn’t there.

You’ve probably come across 404 error messages all the time when you’re browsing the web ad it’s frustrating.

The bad news is that it might be happening on your website without you even knowing and there is a hidden price.

Lost trust, abandoned carts, and missed leads. 

If a popular product or your contact page returns a 404, then every click means a lost sale.

But don’t worry, it’s easier than you think to find, track and fix these errors.

 

02 – EXPORTING 404 LIST FOR ANALYSIS

*How to download a CSV of broken 404s*

Here’s how you can download a list of broken pages from Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools and other third party tools

1. First off, open Google Search Console and navigate to Indexing on the left hand side, then click the “Not Found (404)” option from the list
2. You’ll see a graph with the number of affected pages over time.
   This graph helps establish if it’s a growing problem and demonstrates the progress of any fixes you make.
3. Below that you’ll see a table full of example URLs – these are all the broken pages which Google has discovered.
4. Click Export in the top right corner and choose Download CSV.
5. Now just save that file – this is your master list of missing pages.

To be thorough we recommend using the similar report in Bing Webmaster Tools, this can might reveal problems which Google hasn’t discovered yet. 

1. Open Bing Webmaster Tools. We showed you how to set it up in a previous episode.
2. Click on the Site Explorer on the navigation bar
3. Then use the “Filter by” dropdown to select “URLs with Crawling Issues – dead links – 404’s option
4. Then click the download button and save the file.

If you’ve got access to an SEO tool like Screaming Frog you can optionally use it to crawl your site to discover and export internal broken links too. 

 

03 – MAPPING 404 URLS TO CORRECT PAGES

1. Drop all these URLs from Google, Bing and other auditing tools into one spreadsheet in one column. Label that column “Source URL”
2. If you’re using Excel just select that column, head to the Data tab, click Remove Duplicates then click OK.
3. Create another column called “Target URL”. This is the URL of the page where you want it the visitor to land instead. Ideally you want to try to link it to the most useful page possible for your visitors. If they’re expecting certain page then always make sure you give them that page, or something similar if it’s gone.

Try not to redirect every broken link to the homepage. You’re expecting users to dig around in your site trying to find what they’re looking for – something very few of them will do.

 

04 – IDENTIFYING PATTERNS IN URL STRUCTURE

*Spotting batch issues like a detective*

Batch errors can happen when you rename a folder or remove a category — A small change that affects many pages. 

A quick way to spot them is by looking for patterns, rather than fix all the pages individually you can just fix the pattern.

For example, you might notice that a number of URLs all begin with the word ‘store’ and you remember you changed that to ‘shop’ recently.

These types of changes can be fixed quickly once, and affect everything matching those patterns.

One great way to find patterns in huge lists of 404s is to feed that CSV into an AI like Chat GPT or Gemini asking it something like:

“Look for common patterns in the attached list of 404 URLs and give me an easy-to-understand explanation, how it happened and how to fix.”

05 – COMMON SOURCES OF BROKEN LINKS

*Why links break and how to stop it happening again*

Broken links typically boil down to a few common culprits.

It might be something as simple as making a typo, things like think /contract-us instead of /contact-us.

Sometimes when you change a page title the content management system can change the URL too, but other pages might not automatically reflect that change.

There could be links leftover from an old version of your site before a migration, or some old links left in PDF documents or email signatures.

There are also third‑party backlinks, where external websites point to now‑absent URLs – or they’ve just been sloppy.

But you can reach out to popular websites and ask them to fix those links at the source of the mistake.

 

06 – TIPS AND TRICKS

If you’re not sure what was on that broken page or where it came from, here are some tips on how to play detective.

First try the URL inspector in Search Console to find out where Google discovered that broken link, and if it has an old version available.

Check if you have any backups of your website, if not then try using the Wayback Machine from the Internet Archive for a copy.

But sometimes the URL itself hints at the page title or product code which gives you a good idea what is useful.

Let’s say you discovered a 404 page with the filename of “promotions-2019” which is presumably deleted when the promotion ran out.

So, it’ll makes sense to point to this year’s promotions page, your latest offers or a store page – as the intent of the user implies that they want to save some money or buy things.

If all this sounds too complicated or you don’t want to make thousands of these decisions then contact Genessee, we love a challenge and eat redirections for breakfast!

 

07 – CREATING REDIRECTS

You’ve got your spreadsheet with a list of Source and Target URLs, the next step is to tell your web server to ‘redirect’ from the broken page to the correct page.

Redirects work like signposts.

A 301 redirect tells browsers and search engines that “This page has moved – follow me for the new location”

To implement these, you’ve got the option to use plugins, server rules, or external fixes depending on your setup.

If you’re using WordPress there are redirect plugins like “Redirection”, “Quick 301 Redirects” or “All In One SEO”.

These all allow you to batch import that spreadsheet you created earlier, also manually creating redirects within the WordPress dashboard individually.

For non-WordPress sites or and more complex pattern handling you can use server level redirects.

Now, these are beyond the scope of this video but essentially you can pass that spreadsheet over to your web developer or hosting provider.

You can ask them to set up the redirects based on that list – you’ve done 99% of the work already making those decisions. Just make sure they don’t just redirect everything to the homepage as we see this time and time again.

You can also fix broken links from their source if they’re on an external site. 

If it’s one high value URL on a reputable site, contact their webmaster. You should still set up a redirect for that broken link in the meantime.

 

08 – VALIDATING YOUR FIXES IN GSC

*Confirming resolution and requesting re indexing*

Your next task is to let google know you’ve tried fixing everything you can so they can try crawling the site again.

But if you want to double check everything first then try using an SEO crawling tool like Screaming Frog to see if those broken links have been fixed.

The report should show a decrease in the number of 404 errors, one thing to note is it might show an increase in the number of 301 redirects – this is expected shouldn’t be a problem.

1. After you’ve checked, go to Google Search Console > Indexing , pages on the left-hand side, go to the on 404s report then and click **Validate Fix**.
2. Google will then re-crawl and remove the 404 status if they’ve been fixed. 
3. Typically, this takes a few days and you’ll get an email stating if the redirects worked or not.
   We recommend keeping an eye on the affected pages chart to look for a decreasing trend in the number of problems.

 

09 – SCHEDULING REGULAR 404 AUDITS

*Making broken link checks part of your monthly routine*

Set a reminder in your calendar to review 404s each month.

Make it part of your routine to keep checking for problems – one of those broken URLs could be a business critical page.

Check the affected pages chart in search console for any spikes or growing trends and implement redirects before things get out of hand – especially if they’re pattern based.

If you’re short on time then reach out to our SEO team at Genessee, we perform these types of detailed checks on a monthly basis – no challenge is too small.

WRAP UP

That’s 404s made simple. 

They cost your business clicks, trust and revenue. 

But with regular audits and redirects, you’ll keep both visitors and search engines on the right track. 

Download our free 404 checklist with links to every tool we recommended in this video – it’s totally free!

If you’re feeling unsure about anything or your spreadsheet of links is overwhelming, drop us an email at show@wearegenessee.com -we’d love to hear from you.