John Muller explained that Googlebot crawling 404 pages is a good thing. It means that Google is interested in crawling more content from the website.
Google’s John Muller uploaded a video on the topic “How Google treats 404 and 410 status codes differently?” The video explains the impact of 404 and 410 pages. He also explained why it is good if Google crawls your 404 pages.
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404 Status Code:
404 status code represents the page that does not exist. It is an error code. In search engine optimization, the 404-error means that you need to fix links that lead to broken pages. Modern SEO does not require web admins to fix 404 error pages.
Whenever a user or crawler visits a page that does not exist, the server sends 404 error messages. This message communicates that the requested page does not exist. The error is that the request is not in the webpage.
404 error is also called 404 Not Found. Whenever a requested page is not found, it results in a 404 status code.
Why Google Crawls 404 Pages:
A Reddit user posted that Google keeps crawling his 404 pages. Even though those pages were not listed on the sitemap. The Googlebot is crawling pages with a status code of 404.
This indicates that the crawl budget is getting wasted on missing pages.
The user claimed that he checked pages-sitemap.xml for missing pages, and the pages are not there.
John Muller’s response to 404 Crawling:
Google has been crawling 404 pages for a very long time. Pages that are removed often fall in this category.
John Muller makes it clear that repeated 404 crawling means that Google wants to crawl more content, and it is a good sign for the website.
404 Page Not Found Response:
404 status code is nothing more than a page not found. It also displays that there is no error on the page, but the request itself is an error.
410 Gone Response:
410 status code means that the page is gone permanently. It indicates that the links to the 410 pages should be removed.
How Google Handles 404 and 410 Status Codes:
- 410: It is the error status code that indicates that the page has been removed permanently. Google treats it the same way it treats the 404 status code.
- 404: This status code means that the page does not exist. Google crawlers can still crawl 410 or 404 pages.
John Muller on 404 and 410 Codes:
John Muller explained that these error codes do not cause a problem. You can leave them the way they are.
Google has no issue if your website search console report displays multiple 404 and 410 pages.
404 Server Response Misunderstandings:
Many web admins and SEOs often make mistakes thinking 404 is an error page.
404 (Page Not Found):
404 responses simply mean that the page was not found. Even the official web standard for the 404-status code confirms that.
404 Is Not an Error:
404 is a status code, not an error. There is nothing to fix as the page is not broken. It is the request that is trying to visit the page that does not exist.
Conclusion:
Googlebot often crawls pages with a 404 status code. It does not mean that you must fix anything. It simply means that there is no page for the requested URL.
Search console displays 404 errors so that web admins know which pages are intentionally gone and which are just error requests.
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