Finding 404 links

[azguy]

My first campaign is nearly complete and I have like 40 - 404's. How can I find where these links are on my site? We recently moved over to WP from html and that's what happened.

[RyanKent]

Check your crawl report.

There is a field titled "4xx (Client Error)". If you are using Excel select Data > Filter > AutoFilter, then change the field to TRUE. The list will show the URLs which are causing your 404 errors.

[ClickValueMedia]

So Ryan, would you then suggest doing a 301 on all those pages? I'm thinklng if the page can pass on any authority do a 301. Is it ever a good idea to just the page fall out of the index natrually. In webmaster tools google advises not to manually remove pages but I think that having a bunch of 404s is not ideal.

D

[RyanKent]

It would depend on the URL involved. More specifically, what content did the URL point to previously, and is there something similar on the site now.

If the site does not contain any content related to the old URL I would make sure it has a helpful 404 page set up and let the page go to that page. 404s are a natural part of the internet and there is nothing wrong with them as long as you are prepared to handle them. Those errors can even be an opportunity to do something fun on your site. My favorite 404 page ever > http://lookitsme.co.uk/404. If you visit this link go ahead and have sound on, it's not loud, it's funny and safe for work.

[ClickValueMedia]

Ha, great 404 page. Thanks for the reply Ryan.