404the role of pages

1to avoid dead links

Website Settings404after the page is returned, if the website has dead links, the search engine spider crawling such URLs will receive404When the server returns the "status response" of "page not found", it is known that the URL has expired, and the webpage will no longer be indexed, and feedback will be sent to the data center to delete the webpage represented by the URL from the index database. Avoid the impact of dead links on the website's inclusion.

2to improve user experience

404pages usually occur when users visit non-existent or deleted pages on the website, and the server returns404error pages, informing the browser that the requested page does not exist or the link is incorrect, and guiding users to use other pages on the website instead of closing the window and leaving, to eliminate the user's frustration.

3to avoid a decrease in trust

Search engines identify the status of web pages through HTTP status codes. When a search engine receives a broken link, the website should return404status codes, to inform the search engine to abandon the indexing of this link. While if the server returns200 or302status codes, the search engine will create an index for this link, leading to a large number of different links pointing to the same page content. As a result, the search engine's trust in the website is significantly reduced. Many websites have this problem:404the page returns200 or302status codes instead of404status codes.

4to avoid punishment

Some websites, due to some incorrect server configurations, return200 status codes or302Status codes, although these status codes do not affect users visiting the website, they can mislead search engines into thinking that the page is valid, thereby crawling it. If404Too many pages result in a large number of duplicate pages, which might be considered as cheating by search engines and lead to penalties.