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While visiting websites, users may come across a page informing them of an error with a 404 code. This is not very encouraging information, and its display very often causes the user to abandon the searched or browsed website. Since it's not always possible to avoid the error, it's a good idea to provide information about it in a graphically attractive and visually consistent way with the website.
See what is a 404 error and what it means, how to bypass it and what to do when it occurs (popular joomla, wordpress systems) ? Examples of inspiring 404 pages.
A 404 error is nothing more than an erroneous reference to a non-existent location or file. One of its manifestations, for example, is an invalid link. A sub-linking error causes the redirect to go into a sort of void. It could also be a poorly executed redirect, or the directory to which the redirect leads is not created on the server in question. A domain redirected to a non-existent directory will also return an error.
Importantly, this is information that the browser is communicating with the server, but the server cannot fulfill the request made to it.
It may happen that the error is displayed when the server is not responding for a while. Usually forcing a refresh of the web page is completely sufficient and the page will load correctly. You can refresh the browser's memory by using the key combination ctrl+F5 or F5
It is slightly different when a website displays correctly on mobile devices, but returns an error on a computer or laptop. Then the user should clear cookies and cache files of the web browser. They may be the source of the aforementioned error.
If the url is entered incorrectly, but saving it makes it active, it also redirects to a page with a 404 code. This happens most often when there are so-called typos or "Czech error" in the url, i.e. a rearrangement of letters. It's worth checking carefully that the address is spelled correctly. Sometimes changing one letter solves the whole issue.
If the owner of a website is thinking about its reconstruction - extending the offer or changing it, most often this involves rebuilding the main menu of the site. What follows is a change in the structure of the site some subpages are removed, some change their place in the menu or submenu. If you remove / change the subpages indexed in Google (visible in search results after entering the command site:domain.pl), then after their removal, they will still be displayed in search results for some time.
Any user who clicks on this result will be met with a 404 error. To avoid this situation, you can perform a 301 redirect on the deleted pages thus moving the 'traffic' to another subpage and not losing visibility in Google. Thanks to the redirect, the user will be automatically transferred to another destination page, will bypass the deleted page and will not see the error message.
htaccess file
Among the reasons that cause users to receive a 404 error could also be a problem with the .htaccess file or malware installed on the computer that prevents users from opening and viewing websites.
The .htaccess file is a very important part of any web server. Thanks to it you can have control over all redirects, secure your directories or change url parameters. If there have been some recent changes to the file, and after them the site started returning a 404 error, one way to fix it will be to restore the old version of the file. This can be done using a backup copy.
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Too many 404 messages can signal to the user and Google robots that the site has been poorly designed in terms of building information architecture, which will significantly reduce its quality in the eyes of the user and search engine. With major website redesigns, especially of large sites, or failure to take care of 301 redirects, it can reflect on positions and errors in Google Search Console panel.
Default 404 error page
The default 404 page is unattractive and negatively perceived. You can work on the visual element of the sub-page here as well. Designed and matched to the website, the 404 subpage makes a much better impression. You can use the default versions offered by wordpress, for example. You can also use ready-made galleries or design such information yourself.
Here are some interesting examples of what a 404 subpage might look like.
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