{"id":4705,"title":"404 Errors","description":"On rare occasions, you might run into a 404 error on your page. This is usually down to a broken link but don't worry, it can be a really easy fix. In this tutorial, we discuss what 404s are, why they happen and give you some advice on how you can fix them.","content":"

This tutorial is part of our SEO<\/a> series and this time we're talking about 404s. We discuss what 404 errors are, why they happen and give you some advice on how you can fix them.<\/p>

We say at the start of this SEO series that one of the best analogies that you can use to understand what Google is, is by imagining a digital high street. If we imagine we're on a high street now looking around all the shops, we've probably got a search intent in our mind. Let's say we are searching for orange juice.<\/p>

We would rank the shops around on a mixture of quality relevance and trust to help decide where to get orange juice.<\/p>

Relevance<\/strong><\/h3>

The store would have to be relevant and contain what we're looking for, i.e. orange juice.<\/p>

Quality<\/strong><\/h3>

If a store was really bad quality and was falling apart, we probably wouldn't go into it.<\/p>

Trust<\/strong><\/h3>

If there was a store that we had been recommended by a friend or family member, we would probably prioritise that store.<\/p>

So if there is a really high quality, well-trusted shoe shop, it would not be a place we'd go to look for orange juice because it's not relevant. That's how Google works using all three principles - quality, relevance and trust.<\/p>

\"\"

Another thing that we have to understand about the high street is that every store has an address. Every store has a place and we remember the location for when we come back to it again.<\/p>

On the internet, the web address is called a URL.<\/p>

For example, 'radicalteemillstore.teemill.com\". Then if you had a product, the address for that product might be 'radicalteemillstore.teemill.com\/theproduct'.<\/p><\/blockquote>

Sometimes you might see a 404 error on your website. A 404 error will look like your website and then in the middle of the page it will say \"404 this page could not be found\". The reason that this happens is that you might go to a web address or URL and there is nothing to display or no content there.<\/p>

It's important that we fix an error 404, otherwise it's like going to a shop and seeing that it has disappeared. Imagine if that was your shop and you had paid for a lot of advertising and then loads of customers showed up to an amazing shop on a high street that suddenly no longer existed. Google will look at that as something that is not positive for your search results, so it's important to fix it as soon as you can.<\/p>

The way an error 404 normally occurs is because of a broken link.<\/p><\/blockquote>

\"\"
- Remember to double check links or URLs if you update your homepage or pages. All Teemill stores including National Geographic, have to keep their product links up to date to prevent 404 errors from occurring.<\/em><\/p>

Here's an example of how an error 404 can occur:<\/p>

On your homepage you might have completed some great keyword research, made a new blog and linked this new blog to your homepage. Let's say this blog is about orange juice.<\/p>

At the time of making this blog, you may have called the blog \"OJ\" so your URL would appear as \/oj at the end. Sometime after you may want to edit the blog, include another keyword phrase and realise you should have called the blog \"Orange Juice Flavours\". One thing you might want to do is edit the URL to \/orange-juice-flavours instead of \/oj.<\/p>

Now that the URL has changed, that blog now has a new address. Using our high street analogy, the location and address has changed. If a customer went to \/oj there would be nothing there anymore, so a 404 error would occur.<\/p>

A 404 error is not a problem with Teemill and if you see one, it's actually Teemill successfully letting you know there's nothing in that address anymore and acts as a prompt for you to redirect the link on the homepage.<\/p>

The way to avoid 404s is not to just avoid renaming your URLs. Renaming URLs is actually good practice, especially if your original URL is not precise and descriptive enough. The way to really avoid 404 errors is to make sure that if you do change the URL, in the parts of your site where you had linked out to that URL, you then work through them and update any of those old link addresses to the new ones.<\/p>

\"\"
- The easiest way to avoid updating your homepage is to link out to collections<\/a> rather than individual products. The RSPB created a collection and page for their \"Puffin\" designs.<\/em><\/p>

So in our earlier example of orange juice, which on our home page we had previously linked to \/oj, we would need to return to our homepage and click on the part that links to \/oj and amend the link to \/orange-juice-flavours instead.

If we were to change the Orange Juice Flavours blog and there were links to that URL address on our homepage, we would need to change the link to the new location. This is like a shop on a high street. If you close a shop down and moved it to a better location, it's a good idea to make sure that you update people with the new address. And update your marketing so it also sends your customers to the new address.

We hope you found that helpful and you can check out the next blog in the Learn SEO series here<\/a>. <\/p>","urlTitle":"how-to-fix-404-errors","url":"\/blog\/how-to-fix-404-errors\/","editListUrl":"\/my-blogs","editUrl":"\/my-blogs\/edit\/how-to-fix-404-errors\/","fullUrl":"https:\/\/teemill.com\/blog\/how-to-fix-404-errors\/","featured":false,"published":true,"showOnSitemap":true,"hidden":false,"visibility":null,"createdAt":1590071252,"updatedAt":1725948201,"publishedAt":1725873610,"lastReadAt":null,"division":{"id":12,"name":"Teemill"},"tags":[{"id":457,"code":"video","name":"video","url":"\/blog\/tagged\/video\/"},{"id":654,"code":"s-e-o","name":"SEO","url":"\/blog\/tagged\/s-e-o\/"}],"metaImage":{"original":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/5edfc11b29a794.73629102.jpeg","thumbnail":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/5edfc11b29a794.73629102.jpeg.jpg?w=1140&h=855","banner":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/5edfc11b29a794.73629102.jpeg.jpg?w=1920&h=1440"},"metaTitle":"","metaDescription":"","keyPhraseCampaignId":null,"series":[{"id":5,"title":"SEO","description":"Learn how to get your Teemill store to the top of Google using SEO","createdAt":"2020-06-09T18:29:40.000000Z","updatedAt":"2020-06-10T09:35:36.000000Z","published":0,"urlTitle":"online-course-seo-learn-basics","url":"\/blog\/series\/online-course-seo-learn-basics","editUrl":"\/blogs\/series\/edit\/online-course-seo-learn-basics\/","fullUrl":"https:\/\/teemill.com\/blog\/series\/online-course-seo-learn-basics\/","division":12,"image":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/5edfc704425343.34974177.jpeg.jpg?w=640&h=auto","banner":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/5edfc704425343.34974177.jpeg.jpg?w=1920&h=auto"}}],"similarReads":[{"id":71,"title":"SEO: How to get to the top of Google","url":"\/blog\/seo-top-google\/","urlTitle":"seo-top-google","division":12,"description":"SEO stands for search engine optimisation, and that means getting your brand to show up top of Google's search results. So how do you start climbing those search rankings?","published":true,"metaImage":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/xjcjjrtcqo7veucksb43cjsffd5zn2j4dx8s55aomehfzkdg.png.jpg?w=1140&h=855","banner":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/xjcjjrtcqo7veucksb43cjsffd5zn2j4dx8s55aomehfzkdg.png.jpg?w=1920&h=1440"},"hidden":0},{"id":101,"title":"Using AI to optimise e-commerce conversion rate","url":"\/blog\/ai-ecomerce-conversion-optimisation\/","urlTitle":"ai-ecomerce-conversion-optimisation","division":12,"description":"We're deploying algorithms in the background, from cart improvements, mobile optimisation, speed improvements, image optimisation, pixel pushing and more, all driven by algorithms designed to find you the extra few percent improvements.","published":true,"metaImage":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/5da446bd74d386.89886378.jpeg.jpg?w=1140&h=855","banner":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/5da446bd74d386.89886378.jpeg.jpg?w=1920&h=1440"},"hidden":0},{"id":2871,"title":"5 easy SEO blog tips to boost traffic","url":"\/blog\/5-steps-to-optimise-your-blog-posts-for-seo\/","urlTitle":"5-steps-to-optimise-your-blog-posts-for-seo","division":12,"description":"We explain how to optimise your posts for SEO in 5 easy steps to get your blog noticed and drive more traffic to your store.","published":true,"metaImage":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/5eabdbdba92f41.53341623.jpeg.jpg?w=1140&h=855","banner":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/5eabdbdba92f41.53341623.jpeg.jpg?w=1920&h=1440"},"hidden":0}],"labels":{"monitorCheckExcluded":"1"}}