404 page errors are automatically demonstrated on Webflow sites when the server cannot find a page. As a rule it happens due to an incorrect Webflow URL or broken link. You have an opportunity to take advantage of your website's 404 page in many respects, and one of them is maintaining the peculiar design of your website. Now let us learn how to create and customize yours so that users would figure out that there’s something wrong and discover the 404 page structure.
How to find 404 page using Google Search console
Marking a 404 page in the Search Console is one of the most elementary ways to discover and correct it. The table of Webflow 404 page errors can be found after logging into your account and clicking on Crawl errors under diagnostics. Then, choose Not found to create a table of all links that arise in 404 error.
After clicking on any URL, you’ll see a list of the pages where a broken link is linked. Edit these links directly and later make Google recrawl your Webflow website in order those 404 page mistakes disappear from the list.
In case of finding any broken links from an external domain that are broken due to your mistakes or perhaps misspelling, you may want to make the Webflow website owner to fix the link or set up 301 redirection to make that link redirect to organic link.
According to how massive your website is, to create redirects from 404 pages might take plenty of time. But it’s an extremely healthy tactic in the long-standing period as you’ll see how highly appreciated it is by your website visitors and - no less important - by search engines.
Some other tools to help you find 404 page on your Webflow website
There’s a lot of other tools that may help you with finding the 404 page on the site in case you don’t want to use Google Search Console. Those tools create a truly impressive list of options for you to choose from. Here are some of them - let’s discover how they work.
SEMRush
SEMRush is quite a famous service giving you heaps of tools. Site Audit option is there to crawl the website automatically and create a list of all the possible issues, 404 pages included.
Screaming Frog
There’s one more popular tool for searching for and spotting SEO problems on sites. Screaming Frog is very easy to use and you will find all 404 page errors without difficulties.
How to find out if 404 page affect your website’s SEO
The area professionals are still not sure about the impact 404 pages create for overall SEO of the Webflow site. There have been some talks regarding a significant amount of these pages and how badly they might hurt the website rankings and even lead to a penalty.
The main thing is that all these discussions are proven to be wrong. Your site won’t result in a punishment for including 404 pages. The only opportunity some issues occur - when a crucial homepage was removed somewhere without redirection or deleted accidentally. So it’s better for your Webflow website not to face these issues.
As stated by Google, your website 404 page must follow these recommendations:
- There should be no traffic coming to this page.
- Make sure there are no significant links to those pages.
But there may also be some 404 pages on your Webflow website that don't fit the above conditions. Below you’ll learn how you can fix them.
How to fix 404 page error
Consequently, if you’ve spotted a 404 page error which causes issues for the Webflow site, you should definitely remove them from your site and further you’ll find some regular guidelines about how to do it.
Retry page by pressing F5
The most obvious means to troubleshoot your Webflow 404 page - refresh it. Try the URL in the address bar again or click the refresh button - a couple of times if needed. Often, these steps are satisfactory as 404 pages can appear for several reasons despite the fact there is no real problem. So, the simple refresh will load the missing page.
Check the Webflow URL errors
Another common reason for a Webflow 404 page showing is because the URL was entered incorrectly, or the link leads to the inappropriate URL. Correcting these errors will deal with the issue.
Move up one directory level
For instance, if a URL www.web.com/a/b/c. Htm shows you 404 page not found errors, then move to www.web.com/a/b/. And if you don’t find anything there or an issue still occurs, then it’ll be reasonable enough to move up to www.web.com/a/. This will lead you directly to the answer you’ve been looking for or merely confirm that your Webflow URL is not accessible.
Search your Webflow homepage using popular search engine
Often, there can be a situation where you just have an absolutely wrong URL for the Webflow website. In such a situation, start Bing or Google search to figure out where you wish to go. As soon as you detect the page you’re requesting, refresh your favorite or bookmark to dismiss 404 page issues after this.
Clear the browser’s cache
Do it in case you have any evidence that the 404 page error is just yours, not the website’s trouble. You are able to control this by achieving the email from your phone - if it might be outreached from there rather than from your tablet, clearing the cache on your tablet might be helpful.
Change the DNS servers used by your computer
Do it if the entire website gives you a 404 page issue, and particularly if it’s available to those on different networks - smartphone network, or even a co-founder in another city.
Typically, 404 error for the whole site is not a regular thing unless it’s not under some government filters or censor websites. But in spite of all these reasons, if such things come, you can try to give another collection of DNS servers. It might be a solution to your problem.
Try contacting the Webflow website directly
You might contact the website at once and in case they’ve removed the page you are searching for, then the 404 page is entirely legitimate and the site managers will notify you on that. But if they have transferred the page in a different place and demonstrate 404 page errors to you instead of redirecting you to the new page, then it’s a good thing to remind them to build a redirect.
Simply wait
If you’ve already looked through all the possible ways to fix this problem, it might be a great idea to wait. It’s not really what you are expecting to hear, but it could be the only course of action, particularly if you’re sure that the 404 page isn’t considered to appear.
Check if it’s not an error similar to 404
Sometimes, you can face other bug reports associated with 404 page errors. The list comprises:
- 401 Unauthorized
- 400 Bad Request
- 408 Request Timeout
- 403 Forbidden
To get more info on HTTP Status Codes, discover the list of them on the web.
Sometimes, your users may face a Soft 404 page error. Let’s look into it.
What is a soft 404 error
A page with a soft 404 error is a page that should not exist, but is still there as stated by the CMS. It may seem complicated for you as a reader, but for search engines it can be even more confusing, too.
A soft 404 page error is a mark applied by search engines to help them discover, make sense of them and not to omit them at all while crawling your site. These issues can also be found by such instruments as Google Search Console and others. What you have to do here is to fix them as soon as you can in order that your Webflow site functions ok.
Regular 404 page returns a 200 OK status, soft 404 page nonetheless exists and stops in the SERP if it’s indexed and crawled. And if you believe such cases are rare, you’re a little bit mistaken. This takes place quite often, particularly on WordPress sites and other well-known CMS, Webflow included. It happens because there are tons of automatically created pages on those CMS.
Soft 404 page and their relationship with SEO
Yes, a soft 404 page can harm your website’s rankings as search engines don’t like dead links. They present a lack of maintenance on the Webflow website and are really puzzling for search engines as they see a totally different result from what is expected.
Consequently, in case you’ve noticed similar pages with the help of any instruments, it’s better for you to delete them as fast as you can. It’s an extremely unpleasant practice to have thin pages to be found by bots - it can affect your whole efficiency.
How to fix soft 404 page
As a rule, fixing a soft 404 page depends on what you wish that page to accomplish. First and foremost, make sure the page with issues forwards the correct status code. Also, beyond the suggestions that were enlisted above, you could do the below:
- If you moved the page to some new position, give it 301.
- If you still require this page, but don’t wish it to be crawled by Google, noindex it.
- If you are sure that the page does not exist any longer, give it 404 or 410 status.
And always attempt to preclude such problems on your Webflow website instead of fixing them after negative things happen.
How to create your custom 404 page
Now that you have learned what a 404 page is and how it may or may not affect your site’s ranking, comes the moment for you to adjust your Webflow 404 page. As we’ve already stated before, a personalized 404 page could become a really helpful tool in the navigation around the website.
As soon as you open your default 404 page to edit, make sure it includes a failure message that is easy to discover in order that your audience will be signaled that the page they are looking for is unavailable at the moment. It’s very important for your Webflow site to avoid being punished. Keep in mind including links to your landing page or search page and any other section of your Webflow site you consider necessary.
One more way to make your website unique and engaging for users is to share your client's feedback via Webflow Google Reviews.