• About Us
  • Contributors
  • Guides
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Write for The SEM Post
  • Submit a tip or contact us!
  • Newsletters

The SEM Post

Latest News About SEO, SEM, PPC & Search Engines

  • Google
  • SEO
  • Mobile
  • Local
  • Bing
  • Pay Per Click
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • State of the Industry
You are here: Home / Google / Most 404 Errors in Google Search Console Not Site Owner’s Fault

Most 404 Errors in Google Search Console Not Site Owner’s Fault

January 3, 2017 at 5:23 am PST By Jennifer Slegg

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
  • WhatsApp
  • Evernote
  • SMS

gsc-404-errors-faultMany people hate when 404 errors pop up in their Google Search Console account.  While this is something we most often see when a site is hacked, the 404 error report can also be a treasure trove of information when doing a site redesign, URL structure change or when going from http to https, to see where there might be issues.

But because the 404 error report can show all kinds of things – such as when your site is hacked and the hacker points a ton of links to those hacked pages, or simply when someone linked to your site and incorrectly linked the proper URL – many people view 404 errors as potentially being a quality or ranking issue.

First, Google has made it clear that 404s do not cause either a ranking or quality issue.  After all, if this was the case, competitors would just trigger 404 errors on other sites in their space all day long.

The topic came up with a change Google made last year where Google would attempt to find a mobile version of a site that wasn’t mobile friendly by crawling commonly used URLs for the site, such as mobile.example.com, m.example.com, example.com/m/ and example.com/mobile/, because not all site owners might have correctly implemented their mobile site structure so that Googlebot was aware of it.  And these were showing up in some 404 error reports and causing concern.

John Mueller tweeted a response about it, and one of the interesting things he said is that most 404 errors are not the site’s fault.

@suzukik @jenstar Most 404s aren't the site's fault; people (+sites) link in the weirdest, broken ways. Hiding the errors doesn't seem right

— John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) January 3, 2017

I agree here, hiding 404 errors, regardless of how Googlebot found them, is a bad idea, because you never know how some might find these various types of errors useful.  For example, some people discover their site has been hacked by hackers linking to their hacked pages incorrectly.  And some might go and add a 301 redirect to links that are incorrectly linked to a 404 page, so that visitors clicking the link get the page they want, and so the site benefits from the value of the link.

That said, they can be annoying since there is no way to clear them though, especially since sometimes those 404s stick around for a long time.  And for best practices, you always want to keep an eye on those errors in case something did go wrong on the site’s end, such as when doing a URL structure change or a site redesign.

So when looking at your 404 errors, don’t think of it from the perspective that the site has done something wrong or wish Google wouldn’t show them, but rather take from it the value that is there.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
  • WhatsApp
  • Evernote
  • SMS
The following two tabs change content below.
  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Google+ profileMy LinkedIn profile

Jennifer Slegg

Founder & Editor at The SEM Post
Jennifer Slegg is a longtime speaker and expert in search engine marketing, working in the industry for almost 20 years. When she isn't sitting at her desk writing and working, she can be found grabbing a latte at her local Starbucks or planning her next trip to Disneyland. She regularly speaks at Pubcon, SMX, State of Search, Brighton SEO and more, and has been presenting at conferences for over a decade.
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Google+ profileMy LinkedIn profile

Latest posts by Jennifer Slegg (see all)

  • 2022 Update for Google Quality Rater Guidelines – Big YMYL Updates - August 1, 2022
  • Google Quality Rater Guidelines: The Low Quality 2021 Update - October 19, 2021
  • Rethinking Affiliate Sites With Google’s Product Review Update - April 23, 2021
  • New Google Quality Rater Guidelines, Update Adds Emphasis on Needs Met - October 16, 2020
  • Google Updates Experiment Statistics for Quality Raters - October 6, 2020

Filed Under: Google, SEO

Sign up for our newsletter


Comments

  1. Tim Colling says

    January 3, 2017 at 7:10 pm

    This is a source of constant irritation for me, with some of my clients’ websites. The clients who have had websites for many, many years sometimes have managed to collect thousands of 404s before they came to us for services.

    The main thing I have done with the really aggravating ones is to set up regex 410 redirects. That seems to do some good, at least.

    • Jennifer Slegg says

      January 4, 2017 at 6:45 am

      Yes, I do think it is important to look at them and redirect them if applicable. As John said, sometimes people screw up when they link to your site, so I try and fix those whenever possible.

Founder & Editor

Jennifer Slegg (2052)

Sign up for our daily news recap & weekly newsletter.


Follow us online

  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Linkedin
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Latest News

2022 Update for Google Quality Rater Guidelines – Big YMYL Updates

We finally have the first Google Quality Rater Guidelines update of 2022, and like usual, it is … [Read More...]

Recent Posts

  • 2022 Update for Google Quality Rater Guidelines – Big YMYL Updates
  • Google Quality Rater Guidelines: The Low Quality 2021 Update
  • Rethinking Affiliate Sites With Google’s Product Review Update
  • New Google Quality Rater Guidelines, Update Adds Emphasis on Needs Met
  • Google Updates Experiment Statistics for Quality Raters
  • Analyzing “How Google Search Works” Changes from Google
  • Google Quality Rater Guidelines Update: New Introduction, Rater Bias & Political Affiliations
  • Google Updates Quality Rater Guidelines: Reputation for News Sites; Video Content Updates; Quality for Information Sites
  • Google Makes Major Changes to NoFollow, Adds Sponsored & UGC Tags
  • Google Updates Quality Rater Guidelines Targeting E-A-T, Page Quality & Interstitials

Categories

  • Affiliate Marketing
  • Amazon
  • Apple
  • Bing
  • Branding
  • Browsers
  • Chrome
  • Content Marketing
  • Design
  • Domains
  • DuckDuckGo
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Firefox
  • Foursquare
  • Google
    • Analytics
    • Google RankBrain
    • Quality Rater's Guidelines
  • History of Search
  • Industry Spotlight
  • Instagram
  • Internet Explorer
  • Links
  • Local
  • Mobile
  • Native Advertising
  • Other Search Engines
  • Pay Per Click
  • Pinterest
  • Publishers
  • Security
  • SEO
  • Snapchat
  • Social Media
  • State of the Industry
  • The SEM Post
  • Tools
  • Twitter
  • Uncategorized
  • User Experience
  • Video Marketing
  • Week in Review
  • Whitepapers
  • Wordpress
  • Yahoo
  • Yelp
  • YouTube
June 2023
MTWTFSS
« Aug  
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
2627282930 

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.org

Copyright © 2023 · News Pro Theme On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in