404 Not Found

What’s actually happening

The server is healthy and responding, but it has no content at the exact URL requested. Visitors and Google both get a dead end. A few 404s are normal; patterns of them (after a redesign, a URL change, or a broken menu link) quietly bleed traffic and rankings.

Common causes

• A page was deleted, renamed, or moved without a redirect
• A typo or broken link points to a URL that never existed
• A site migration changed the URL structure (e.g. /blog/post vs /post)
• Case-sensitivity or a trailing-slash mismatch on the server

How to fix it

1. Confirm the correct, current URLFind where the content actually lives now. If it still exists, you’ll redirect to it; if it’s truly gone, you’ll decide on the closest relevant replacement.
2. Add a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new oneA 301 (permanent) redirect passes ~all of the old page’s SEO value to the new one and sends visitors to the right place. Add it in your CMS redirect tool, .htaccess, or host’s redirect rules.
3. Fix the links that point at the dead URLRedirects are a safety net, not a fix for bad links. Update internal menus, buttons and content links to point at the live URL directly so you’re not relying on a redirect hop.
4. Design a helpful 404 pageFor URLs that are genuinely gone, a 404 page with search and popular links recovers visitors who would otherwise bounce.