It is easy to fix all the 404 errors on your site if you only have a few dozen not found errors. What if you have hundreds or thousands of 404 errors? What if you can't fix those 404s with a bulk code fix? Your web team might not have the time available to fix all hundreds or thousands of 404s.

In the case, you have to prioritize the 404 errors on your site and fix the most important 404s affecting your visitors. At SpringTrax, we give you an indication of priority calculated based on a number of different factors.

With SpringTrax, you'll know which 404s deserve your immediate attention and which 404s you can wait to fix when you've got time.

Determining Priority

How do we determine priority? Our priority calculation formula looks at a multitude of factors, but it ultimately comes down to three primary areas.

1. Volume of visitors. How many visitors are arriving at this 404 error page? The more visitors affected, the bigger problem you have. However, we also want to look at volume over time to determine if this is a new problem or if this problem has been around for some time.
2. Loss resulting from the 404. If you are losing 9 out of every 10 people who encounter this 404, then you have a huge loss making that a critical 404 error. If, however, most people stay on your website after encountering the 404, the 404 presents a somewhat smaller problem for your business.
3. How people encounter the problem. Finally, how do people encounter this problem? The more ways people encounter this problem, the bigger this problem is. Along with that, of course, we want to look at where people are encountering this error. For example, a 404 error resulting from a link on Google is probably a bigger problem than a link on a smaller website.

Fix Every 404, If You Can

Of course, if you can we strongly suggest you fix every 404 error. But, your time (and your developer's time) is limited and we want to make sure you use that time wisely. So, if you only have time to fix some of the 404s affecting your visitors, then we want to make sure you fix the most important 404s.

Posted by SpringTrax on 2/18/2014

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