Error 404 All You Need to Know (Error 404)

To understand what is the most common error on sites, 404 is important for us to understand how the Internet works.

Have you ever thought about the actions that happen in real time when connecting to our browser and accessing the site for example: www.sfb.co.il How does “the internet” know to give me exactly the site I want?

So a few things that are important for you to know

The Internet is divided into 2 - a surfer side and a server side.

Surfer - you who log in from your phone or computer to a browser (Chrome, Safari, Pierre Fox) and press the URL you want to browse.

Server - The “Innernet” is a set of servers that store code that the browser knows how to translate into what we call a website.

Basically as soon as I log into my browser from the device I'm browsing I log in to a unique IP address.

IP This is a sequence of 4 unique numbers.

Each device that connects to the Internet receives a unique and exclusive IP address.

Every country has a number of IP addresses in their “Paul” (if you were wrong how the internet knows what country we're browsing in).

As soon as I search for a URL (www.sfb.co.il) The browser sends a request to a server called DNS.

The DNS knows how to take the address and return to the browser a numerical address (the number of our website) just like a phone number, with the number that the browser has received it addresses a storage server and asks it to find the unique number of the site. Then the storage server sends the HTML file to our browser and the browser knows how to generate from the code that the HTML has the visibility of the site.

This action is repeated every time we enter different pages on different sites and even on the same site.

And from here we will explain what error 404 means that whoever is responsible for this error is the server side.

Basically that we get a 404 the server tells us that the number the browser asked for doesn't exist.

And so it does not find the HTML file that it wants to show us.

There are several main reasons that cause a 404 error

• Broken Link - A link from another site that redirects to the wrong address on our site.
• Page does not exist - If we have removed a page from our site, this does not mean that its address does not exist, so it is important to generate a sociable 404 (we will expand later).
• Page that we deleted from the site And we didn't create a turn for him (301).

List of common error codes

• 200th - Right page
• 301 - Perpetual turn (total turn and temporary turn can be produced)
• 302 - Temporary invocation (there are a lot of disadvantages to this type of invocation and it is not recommended to use these if there is no other solution)
• 304th - code that is received when untouched on the page for the last login (allows coockie tracking files and cache cache)
• .400 - General response when the server does not understand the browser request
• 401 - No confirmation - This code is obtained when we try to browse a website blocked by a code or other protection
• 404 - Page not found
• .500 - This code comes because there is an error on the server itself
• 503 - Temporarily unavailable server (created due to a very overloaded server that fails to withstand the pressure created for example: that a site falls is the intention in most cases)

There are a few more different types of protocols that we almost never got to come across.

From experience, we have modified these codes and it will certainly be enough for you to understand the basis of the different error codes.

So how do we handle when we have a 404 error on the site?

I mention that a 404 error is caused by a page that does not exist so we will choose and one of several options available to us.

1. Produce a friendly 404 page - build a unique 404 page every time a surfer comes to a page that is not already on the site we will prepare a page that redirects it to all kinds of other topics on our site so as not to lose the surfer, a personal recommendation to put a search bar on the 404 page will make it very easy for the surfer along with the “Back to Home” button.
2. Make a 301 redirect a perpetual redirect - basically once we know we have a page that we have deleted from the site and its address will give the surfer a 404 but we don't want to lose the traffic that that address has we can create a 301 redirect which basically means that the surfer will try to enter a certain address that doesn't exist we will automatically redirect him to another page on our site that we want him to reach. Note that this page is relevant and links to the same topic that was on the old page otherwise it is better and desirable to leave the page an error than redirect to a completely different page.

For example:
If the user has searched for a specific topic and it is taken to the home page, this can create some confusion for the user. Therefore, to use such a redirect only if the page you are referring to resembles a page that does not exist - for example, if the page that the user enters talks about Mazda vehicles, then the reference will be to a topic related to Mazda vehicles and not to the homepage that can talk about other types of vehicles.

In cases where it is not possible to refer to a similar topic because the topic in question no longer exists on the site, it is advisable to create a 404 friendly to that address specifically so that the user chooses what topic they want to reach within our site.

So how do we find 404 pages on your site?

I recommend a tool called Screaming Frog It is a free tool for sites no larger than 500 pages.

Just download the software and put the URL in the field and start scanning.

Then to know which addresses return a 404 error or any other error we will go to the next tab

Best of luck:)