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Let’s say that you are shopping for a new pair of running trainers.
You know the brand of running trainers that you wish to purchase, yet when you see a website that sells those brand of running trainers, and you click the backlinks you see a 404 page error.
Well often it’s because the product has been deleted, that’s the say the retailer has deleted that page, but that product page is still in the index.
So what exactly does this mean?
While quite simply put, the business may have stocked that product, but they have subsequently deleted that page because they no longer stock that product, so when the customer is directed towards that page, they now see a “404 page error”.
Your SEO agency should be aiming to reduce oral for page errors as much is possible, because what can happen is your business incurs a high bounce rate.
Where a customer was going on to your website to possibly purchase a pair of running trainers, they are instead shown a 404 page, which may mean that the customer leaves your website and makes a purchase from another business.
Also a lot of businesses delete product pages, this is despite the fact that some product pages might have earned high quality backlinks.
Also a SEO agency might delete a evergreen content marketing page, that despite the fact that the page might have a high number of backlinks.
You should therefore consult with your digital marketing agency, whether you should use a 301 redirect instead, this if it is implemented in a white hat way may allow your business the send link equity through to the new page.
Your SEO agency should aim to keep 404 page errors to an absolute minimum that’s because it can drastically increase your businesses bounce rate, it can also mean that if too many pages are deleted, you might lose a lot of good quality backlinks.
Why should your agency be checking your crawl error report?
Therefore it might be one of your SEO consultant’s tasks to check a crawl error report every single month, or for a larger business, for example a large e-commerce website, they might have someone checking a crawl error report even on a daily basis.
This will tell the SEO agency which pages are now a 404 page, and this might have occurred simply because the URL has been edited.
Let’s say for example that your business sells “washing machines”, the web designers might add a new product description to a washing machine, by doing so, the e-commerce website might then have changed the URL.
This might cause a “404 page error”, because when somebody selects that washing machine, from the main menu, because the URL has now changed, this might cause a 404 page error.
Why we would recommend not deleting pages
our digital marketing agency therefore recommends that before deleting the product pages, or evergreen content marketing, you should consult with your SEO agency to see whether you should instead use a 301 redirect instead.
We say this because the marketing agency might have spent a lot of time building backlinks to that page, so if that page becomes deleted, you might lose those backlinks
you might have heard us referred to backlinks quite a few times within this article, that’s with good reason because as any good online marketing agency will tell you building high-quality backlinks is an important part of the organic SEO process.
Now, if you have a page, such as the “about us” page which have a lot of good quality backlinks leading to it, and the URL changes, then you may lose all of these good-quality backlinks
Often because product pages have been deleted
Often a 404 page error occurs because the product has been deleted, therefore let’s say that you sell fridge freezers online.
Instead of deleting a page because that fridge freezer is no longer stocked, you might wish to use a 301 page redirect to another fridge freezer that is made by that manufacturer at a similar price point.
Because if you do not use a 301 page redirect you might lose all of the good quality backlinks.
Not only this your customer will see a “404 page error”, and may simply leave your company website, therefore causing much higher bounce rate.
Can increase your businesses bounce rate substantially
Therefore let’s say for example you were shopping to purchase candles, and you wish to purchase “beeswax candles”, let’s say that you click on a meta title says “beeswax candles made in the UK”.
Yet when you click on the meta title, you are then shown a “404 page error”, this might mean that a lot of customers leave your company website, therefore causing your businesses “bounce rate” to increase drastically
Missed opportunity to sell products
therefore good web designers and a good SEO agency will make sure that even if a 404 page error does occur, there is a main menu should appear so that the customer can go on to another page on that website.
Why not suggest other products?
Let’s say for example that you sell been to cup coffee machines, and that particular model is no longer stocked by your business.
Instead of deleting the page, and causing a 404 error, you can simply use a 301 redirect through to another coffee machine made by that manufacturer.
we run an online marketing agency in Cardiff, we serve many different businesses, ranging from large e-commerce businesses through to small businesses.
We therefore work with many businesses in the city of Cardiff, ranging from business is based in Cardiff Bay right through to companies based in Roath Cardiff.