![status code 404 not found status code 404 not found](https://www.techadvisor.com/cmsdata/features/3799095/what-is-a-404-error-main_thumb800.png)
Maybe those documents are HTML, CSS, images, a PDF-whatever it is, the basic relationship stays the same: you (the client), make a request, and the website (the server) responds to that request. Whenever you visit a page on the web, you are requesting a whole bunch of documents from that website’s server. Your home address might be 123 Main Street, New York, NY 10001, and Facebook’s address happens to be 66.220.144.0. When you visit a website, you are making a request to a web server.į,, /1525880/marthas-chocolate-chip-cookies, all of these sites have their own home address.
![status code 404 not found status code 404 not found](https://i1.wp.com/www.scconfigmgr.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/130_3.jpg)
It may be Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Internet Explorer. Let’s talk about how the HTTP protocol works.Īt its very foundation, the Internet is made up of two core things: clients and servers.Īny time you click on your browser, you are accessing the Internet through a web client. It’ll quickly explain what a status code 404 error is, why it happens, and the best way to fix it.īONUS: If you want to check your website’s response codes AND get a comprehensive SEO audit, you can use the tool below (it’s free): If you’ve ever gotten the dreaded status code 404 error, and you have no idea what it is, then this guide is designed for you. So, for example, if you have a URL that used to have a ton of links (or still has them), and now it’s serving a 404, you want to do a 301 permanent redirect to the most relevant page you have on your site. However, if you have authoritative pages that are 404s, you should absolutely replace them. Here are some of the most popular links”. You can actually solve this by having a great 404 page – something like “Sorry, the page you requested was not found. So, in many situations, it’s totally fine to serve a 404-Google won’t hurt you in this kind of situation. It’s fine to serve a 404 if you simply don’t have that page, or if a user misspells a URL (you don’t have to redirect every conceivable URL). It’s not true that all 404s are bad-this is actually a misconception. What happens here is that the URL being requested was simply not found. HTTP Status Code 404: The “Not Found” Error