Every website loses pages: a product is discontinued, an article is merged into a better one, a category is renamed. A visitor who follows an old link then lands on a "page not found" error, the HTTP status 404. Is that a problem for SEO, and what should you do about it?
The short answer from Google's own documentation: a 404 for a page that really no longer exists is fine. The work is in the cases where a replacement does exist.
Do 404 errors hurt SEO?
Not by themselves. Google states in its Search Console documentation that 404 errors generally do not affect how the rest of your site performs in search. Search engines expect the web to change, and a page that is gone should say so with a 404 (not found) or 410 (gone) status. Google treats the two almost the same.
What does cost you is a page that had value and disappeared:
- Visitors from bookmarks, emails, social posts and other sites hit a dead end and leave.
- Links from other websites to that URL stop helping your site, because they point to nothing.
- Internal links to the missing page waste your visitors' clicks and the crawler's time.
So the goal is not "zero 404s". The goal is that every old URL with traffic or links leads to the best page you have now.
When to use a 301 redirect
A 301 (permanent) redirect tells browsers and search engines that a page has moved for good. Google follows it and treats it as a strong signal that the new URL should replace the old one in its results.
Use a 301 when the old page has a real successor on the same topic:
- An article was updated and moved to a new address.
- Two short articles were merged into one complete guide.
- A product was replaced by its newer model.
- A category or section was renamed.
Keep redirects in place as long as you can. For a full site move, Google recommends keeping them for at least a year; for pages that still receive links, there is no reason to ever remove them.
When not to redirect
If nothing on your site covers the same topic, let the page answer 404 or 410. Two common shortcuts backfire:
- Redirecting everything to the home page. Google may treat a redirect from an unrelated page to the home page as a soft 404: it is not counted as a real replacement, and the visitor who wanted a specific product or article gets your home page instead.
- Showing a "not found" message with a 200 status. A page that says "this page does not exist" but answers OK is also a soft 404. Search engines may keep it indexed while visitors see an error.
A helpful custom 404 page, with a search box and links to your main sections, is a better experience than a misleading redirect.
How to clean up missing pages, step by step
- Find them. In Google Search Console, open Indexing → Pages and look at "Not found (404)". A site audit also finds missing pages that your own links point to.
- Sort by value. Start with URLs that still receive visits or have links from other sites.
- Pick the closest live page for each one: same topic, same section, same language. If none exists, leave it as a 404.
- Add 301 redirects for those with a real match.
- Fix your own links. Update menus and articles to link straight to the new URL, so there is no redirect step at all.
- Avoid chains. If A redirects to B and B to C, point A directly at C.
- Check the result. Open a few old URLs and confirm they arrive at the right page in one step.
How Rutba helps
When Rutba's audit finds pages that answer 404 or 410, the Fix Center suggests the closest live page for each one. It compares the words in the old address and title with your current pages, and prefers the same section and language. Each suggestion shows how confident the match is:
- Close match: a page on the same topic was found.
- No close page: only a parent section or the home page was found. In that case, it is usually better to leave the page as a 404, as explained above.
You review every suggestion, can change the target, and nothing changes before you approve it. On WordPress sites the Rutba plugin applies the redirect only while the old address really answers 404, so it can never hide a page that works, and only to a page on the same site. Every redirect can be undone with one click, and Rutba checks after applying it that the old address now leads to the chosen page.
Summary
- A 404 for a page that is really gone is normal and does not hurt the rest of your site.
- Use a 301 redirect when a page has a real successor on the same topic, and keep it for a long time.
- Do not send unrelated pages to the home page; Google may treat that as a soft 404.
- Fix your internal links so they point straight to the current URL.