Learn how to Fix and Repair WordPress 404 Errors
There is one constant to the internet that many people forget about, and it’s simple, errors. No matter how much time you spend online, you are going to see errors creep into your view. This includes the dreaded 404 error. This is something that is not going to go away anytime soon. You could try to fight it, you could try to deny it, but chances are you will face off against this. Most of the time, it’s an issue with the server, the domain name, or something that has nothing to do with you.
However, what if it’s a WordPress error? What if it’s your WordPress error? If you know that something has gone awry, or perhaps you’re being told by your audience that your site is down, you may have to look into ways to fix WordPress. There are several things that you can do to work this out, but don’t just delete and reinstall. Instead, learn how to fix WordPress with a few simple ideas, plugins, and more.
What Is 404?
For those that aren’t sure what 404 errors are, it’s important that you learn fast before you fix WordPress installations. It’s simple, it’s a protocol language that tells you that there has been an error. This could be a misspelled URL, it could be a broken link, or you typed something wrong. Active websites that have errors can also display this. Basically, it is telling you that something is broken, simple as that.
Why Fix WordPress 404 Errors?
Some people may never see a reason to fix WordPress if there is nothing overtly wrong. If you have 1,000 pages on your site, and only 10 of them showcase this error, why fix the install, right? Many people don’t understand how this causes SEO to break as well. Google Analytics, and Webmaster Tools will tell you there are errors and issues overall. When they are showcasing errors, your listing will not show up properly.
When people search for your blog, website, or anything that you’re doing, you are bound by the SEO protocol that search engines follow. If you don’t fix WordPress 404 errors, then you will not be ranked high. In fact, you will end up getting dropped in favor of other sites, which is not a good thing long term. Fixing the errors is crucial. The faster you can fix WordPress errors, the faster you can return to SEO rankings that are favorable overall.
The Easy Way Is Best
When it comes to learning how to fix WordPress, you can go the hard way. This is a path in which you need to have htaccess, and you need to understand NGINX. If you do not know what these means, or perhaps your host doesn’t let you have access to these elements, then you will want to go the easy way. The preferred method for the average WordPress user is going to be the easy route, which involves plugins that help with isolating and fixing 404 errors. If you want to go the hard way, you can do that, there are 8 steps that you will need to follow, and you will need to have an expertise in regards to how to fix WordPress that novices do not. Only you know how familiar you are with this. For the sake of this rundown, the focus will remain on easier paths to fix WordPress 404 errors.
Finding Broken Links
The most notorious culprit of 404 errors is the broken link. These abound everywhere online and they are annoying. It’s so bad that search engines have made sure to pull listings of sites that have too many of these. With that in mind, when you are going to fix WordPress, make sure that you use “Broken Link Checker”, which is a tool that you can install. It’s a plugin that will go through your installation of WordPress and will be able to tell you whether or not you have links that are dead, etc. This is a simple way to get notified as to what’s going awry within your site, even if it’s deep in the archives of your pages.
The biggest issue that you are going to run into when you are trying to fix WordPress is finding the 404 errors. If you have 500 to 1,000 posts on your blog or site, chances are you are not going to be looking through pages one by one. This could take hours, and you may miss one. Let this automated search protocol help you in the quest to root out 404 errors that you are not seeing, and fix them outright. Sometimes the error can be as simple as changing a URL or an embed code for a video you shared long ago.
Customizing 404 Error Pages
For those that want to fix WordPress 404 errors but don’t want to do a lot of digging, don’t worry, there’s a plan of action that you can take. Basically, you can reformat your 404 error pages to have them customized. A customized page can let you market to individuals, and let them know that you’re aware that the page has gone awry, and that you’ll fix it sooner than later. You can change things up using “404 Page by SeedProd”, which is a plugin that lets you plugin, drop in, and edit code to allow your error pages to have the theme of your site, and any code that you want to put into place.
The premium version of this plugin can give you access to a lot of little bells and whistles. For instance, you could use these pages to capture email addresses, and market to individuals that may have missed the content that they were looking for, and much more. It’s a very simple tool, that has a lot of upside, especially if you’re an internet marketer. It not only helps fix WordPress 404 errors, it helps change them for the better.
Another great plugin to create custom 404 pages for WordPress is called 404page and you can download it here
Catch Errors Than Redirect Them
There are a lot of rankings within search engines. If your page gets updated a lot, chances are that there are going to be a few pages that hare indexed and are much older than your page’s current format. When that happens, people still land on old pages and URL’s which means you’ll miss out on giving them content. To avoid this, and fix WordPress, you’ll need to focus on redirection. A redirect is simple. When someone lands on the 404 error, code can send them to a home page, or any other area of your website. Now, doing this without a plugin is possible, but you will need to be savvy about scripting.
If you want to make this far easier, you’ll want to look into the plugin, “Redirection”, which allows you to not only have customized 404 error pages, it can redirect people to another part of your website. The best thing about this is that you will get a full log of what’s going on, and what triggered the 301 redirects. That means that you will not be lost as to what’s going awry with your page, and what you need to work on overall. It takes the guess work out of trying to figure out the right fix. The goal remains to fix WordPress 404 errors, but redirection can at least give your audience a heads up as to what’s going on overall.
The Ultimate 404 Plugin
Of course, no post on how to fix WordPress 404 errors would be complete without mentioning this plugin. There are currently millions of websites that are using this, and you may have seen it in action. This is a plugin that will allow you to have a template version of an error page. The pages are designed nicely, and give the end user a search option, a home page option, and a chance to reload from within the error page itself. It makes your error pages look professional, and stands out against the traditional black and white version. You’ll be surprised that there are several templates that are compatible with this plugin, and by the ease of use that comes with installing, and running this plugin on your WordPress install.
What If You Don’t Fix The 404 Error Pages?
When you’re going to set up a website that has WordPress self-hosted, you need to be actively fixing these error pages. If you do not fix these, you will get left behind in terms of SEO, internet marketing, and your audience will diminish as a result. People expect for things to look a certain way, and simply, work. If they don’t, they will leave. The aforementioned are just a few ideas that you can take with you in regards to fixing error pages. However, if you don’t remember them all, consider at least testing your blog or website often to snuff out errors that may be lurking within the updates. If you catch them, you can fix WordPress with ease. Many of these errors can easily be updated, fixed, and forgotten, so don’t panic if you see 404 error logs and there’s a lot of them. Take the above to task, and you’ll be able to get pages changed over fast.
