Did you know the recent studies have found that 73.72% of people who receive a 404 error page will leave your website?

Creating a website certainly isn’t easy, but there are many small details that are often overlooked that result in big impacts when it comes time for the website to go live. If you’ve recently had 404 errors start popping up on your website, you probably have a ton of questions.

What does error 404 mean? How can you fix it? We’re here to answer all of those questions today.

Scroll down to learn more!

What Does Error 404 Mean?

An error 404 message pop up when the content on a website has been moved to a different URL or is no longer available.

However, there are other reasons that a 404 message will be triggered.

Some of these reasons include:

• The domain that was entered doesn’t exist anymore
•  The domain name that was entered can’t be converted by DNS to an IP
•  The URL was typed into the browser wrong
•  The URL was linked improperly
•  The content on the URL was deleted and didn’t have internal links readjusted properly

Your website or this specific page will still show up on search engine results, even if there isn’t any content available on that particular page.

Common Causes of a 404 Error

You can quickly fix a 404 error on your browser or on the server of your website. Let’s take a closer look at the common causes of a 404 error:

Forgetting to Redirect

If you recently moved your whole website or just moved some pages around, there’s a chance you misplaced the 301 redirects.

A 301 redirect is responsible for telling the person that’s visiting your website that the page has moved to a new URL. It also lets the Google search engine spiders know to redirect users to the new URL.

You can also consider using a 302 redirect, which will only temporarily redirected visitors. Since a 302 redirect doesn’t transfer the SEO value of a specific page, we recommend using a 301 redirect.

Moving A Page

Another common reason that a 404 error will pop up is if you’ve recently moved a page. If you happened to placed the page in the wrong folder, you want to move the page to be the location that it’s meant to be in.

Understanding How to Fix a 404 Error

So, what does error 404 mean? It means that the page that you were trying to view on your website can’t be found on your server. A 404 code means that the server can still be reached, but the specific page can’t be found.

Learning how to fix a 404 error doesn’t have to confuse you! Our team of specialized web hosting experts and web design specialists are here to help you with any need that your website may have.

Are you looking for webhosting and web design help? Click here to contact us today to learn how we can help your website!