Page 45 - Payout Magazine Online Volume 10.01
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Eliminating 404 Errors an external site, there is a high chance that
the development team did not set up aliases
So, how do I get rid of these pesky correctly, and that link was put up when your
errors? Keep in mind that a 404 Error could team was using a different CMS. In that case,
occur if a user simply mistypes something, talk to the development team directly, and do
so sometimes they are okay. However, they some testing of your own to see if there are
should never occur via links clicked within your any other “old links” that do not currently link
site. If you are switching to a new CMS, ensure to your content.
that you and your developers extensively have
swept the site and updated every link to fit 404 Errors With No Referrer
your new format.
As a webmaster, you’ll likely encounter 404
Keep in mind that there are likely blogs Errors that have no referrer, meaning a user
and forums that link to content on your site. directly attempted to go to a link, and it did not
If you switch to a new CMS or change your work. There are two main causes of this. One
linking scheme, anyone who clicks on these is that a user bookmarked a page that they
external links will face a 404 Error, which can can no longer get to; again, this would mean
potentially turn away business. Rather than that aliases from old links to new links were
allow this to happen, you should remember to not configured correctly.
add aliases so that when users click on these
links, they are directed to the content to which The second possibility is that someone is
it used to link. While it would be lovely if all of attempting to “crawl” your site. This means
them kept in sync with your site, you are likely that it’s trying to see what “private pages” your
experienced enough to know that this dream site might have opened accidentally that have
will never happen. not been indexed by major search engines like
Google. An easy way to spot this is if the same
Unfortunately, even with our best effort, IP address appears to be getting 404 Errors
it’s sometimes impossible to quash every tens or hundreds of times in a short span of
potential 404 Error, simply because we time. The best course of action in this case, of
cannot click every link on our ever-growing course, is to ban the offending IP address. It is
web pages. That’s where logging comes into likely attempting to get information it should
play. For example, within Microsoft’s IIS, the not have and is a threat to the security of your
webmaster can set which “Events” should users’ information.
be logged. You should always ensure that all
400-series errors are logged, along with their
accompanying headers.
Internal vs. External Referrers Important Takeaways
It’s important to log the header along with Now we’ll break down the basics of this
the error, because this will tell you what the article. First, it’s important to acknowledge
referrer was. This is important because then 404 Errors will always occur at some points.
you will know whether it was an internal or Second, a leading cause of these errors is
external link. If the referrer is internal, then using a new CMS and not setting up aliases
you can see the page that has the broken link. that automatically forward users clicking links
Send that link over to your development team, that used to be valid to the proper page.
and they should be able to edit the link so
that users do not experience that 404 Error Performing this process will eliminate most
again. You should prioritize these internal 404 of your internal 404 Errors. External 404
Errors, as they can make your site appear Errors are usually caused by the same thing.
unprofessional. If there is no referrer, you should look more
deeply into your server’s log and ensure it’s
On the other hand, while external 404 not an attempted attack.
Errors are a nuisance, they are not as
important. If you see a 404 Error logged from
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