Wird ein 404 Fehler ausgespielt, bedeutet dies für Suchmaschinen, dass Inhalte nicht mehr auffindbar sind. Der 404 Error Code sendet dann "Seite nicht gefunden". Das Problem tritt auf, wenn eine angeforderte URL nicht auf dem Server gefunden wird. In Bezug auf SEO und Rankings hat der 404 Fehler negative Auswirkungen, die umgehend behoben werden müssen:
A 404 error signals to search engines that the requested page does not exist. This also leads to a poor user experience and increasing bounce rates.
Typical reasons for the occurrence of 404 errors are deleted URLs*, changes to the URL structure, incorrect internal links or misspelled URLs.
If a page is frequently served with a 404 error, this can lead to a loss of rankings and visibility. Search engines prefer pages with a good user experience and low error rate. In addition, all indexed content of a website is also available as a copy on the servers of Google & Co. If the original content is no longer on the website, the web crawler gets confused.
Es is important to fix 404 errors by correcting broken links, setting up redirects or creating user-friendly error pages to minimize negative impact on ranking and SEO performance. This is also part of the general services of an SEO support. Either the 404 errors are discovered through monitoring or during an SEO onsite audit.
*A big request from us SEO experts: URLs and content of a website must never just be "deleted". They do not really disappear, but are still listed as a resource on the search engine server. Outdated content, accidental errors etc. are cleaned up, in which 301 redirects are created. This way the search engine bot always knows where the old content has moved to.