Skip to main content

Broken Pages (4xx Errors)

URLs that return a 4xx status code, such as a 404, indicating a valid page could not be returned by the server because it doesn't exist.

Priority: Critical

Impact: Negative

What issues it may cause​

If the URL was previously serving a working page which was ranking in search search engines and driving traffic, the URL will be dropped from the index and the traffic/conversions may be lost.

If a user visits the broken page whilst the page is still indexed, or is generating traffic from backlinks on external websites, the experience may be poor and is more likely to result in a bounce or exit from the site.

If the URLs are linked internally or included in Sitemaps, it will encourage search engines to crawl the URLs which will result in some wasted crawl budget.

How do you fix it​

  • If the page was removed accidentally, it can be restored.
  • If the page was removed deliberately and there is an equivalent page, then the URL can be redirected to it.

  • If there is no appropriate alternative, a 410 status may be used instead of a 404 to reduce the time it takes to remove from the search engine's index, and reduce further recrawling which may save crawl budget.

What is the positive impact​

A redirect to an appropriate alternative URL may result in authority signals being transferred to the redirect target, and rankings potentially retained by the redirect target page.

Removing any internal links to pages which return a 4xx status is likely to reduce crawling activity and save crawl budget.

How to fetch the data for this report template​

You will need to run a crawl for report template to generate report. When report has been generated and you have crawl id you can fetch data for the report using the following query:

query GetReportForCrawl($crawlId: ObjectID!, $reportTemplateCode: String!) {
  getCrawl(id: $crawlId) {
    reportsByCode(
      input: {
        reportTypeCodes: Basic
        reportTemplateCodes: [$reportTemplateCode]
      }
    ) {
      rows {
        nodes {
          ... on CrawlUrls {
            pageTitle
            url
            description
            foundAtUrl
            deeprank
            level
            httpStatusCode
            foundInGoogleAnalytics
            foundInGoogleSearchConsole
            foundInBacklinks
            foundInList
            foundInLogSummary
            foundInWebCrawl
            foundInSitemap
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Try in explorer