404 not found webmaster tools errors check

I have mentioned last month, that i have url slash problem which was shown in Google webmaster tools.

If you are using this tool from Google (related: submit sitemap to Google), I suggest you to always check at least once or twice a month.

This is due to your site’s analysis that really really help for your readers and traffics.

I will share you my experience about 404 not found webmaster tools error in this article..as well as how to fix this problem.

This problem started when i was new to blogging, and received about 50 visitors a day that time. Then while i was checking 404 not found webmaster tools, my traffic dropped to about 10 visitors a day.

Because i was really new and had no experience about seo or whatsoever, i did not know what to do, except of checking stuff like in cPanel errors, Google analytics and also Google webmaster tools.

The one big problem was, i spotted a lots of 404 not found webmaster tools errors.

What does 404 not found webmaster tools errors mean? This error is actually when you created a post, someone links to this post, or this post is already indexed by Google, and when people click on that link, they will not find the related post.

Many things can cause 404 not found webmaster tools, for example, you change your permalinks structure, at least that what happened to me.

I changed my permalink structure from year, month, date to %postname% (related: change permalink wordpress).

I changed the settings after I built quality  backlinks, that’s why, my backlinks were broken and i got that 404 not found webmaster tools errors problem.

So I really suggest you to decide your permalinks settings and stick with it, otherwise you would have to start all over again.

404 not found webmaster tools errors is bad for your blog

Not only loosing traffics as I told above, but 404 not found webmaster tools problem is really not nice for your visitors. They do expect to find the information you offer, but because of this glitch, they have to land in an error page..

My case, was, at that time, when my visitors were still under 100 a day (related: how to get 1000 visitors a day), my traffic source was mainly from forum posting, blog commenting, and answering people in Yahoo Answer website with my wordpress knowledge.

Then, in my Google webmaster tools, including stats analysis, I found people from Yahoo answer site wanted to find my answer or wordpress tutorial, but they could not, because my permalink was updated.

What did i do to fix this 404 not found webmaster tools errors? I did redirection. I heard about a redirect plugin which works good, they say, which is called Dean permalink plugin.

I don’t recommend it because i have never used nor experienced it. If you want to try this plugin, please do it with your own risk.

I have noticed redirection plugin has conflicted with another wordpress cache plugin, (at that time, i used wp super cache).

So i chose to do 301 redirect with .htaccess file.

Tutorial to fix 404 not found webmaster tools errors

Before we continue this fixing 404 not found webmaster tools errors , I want to remind you, that this is very dangerous to do if you are not familiar with .htaccess.

So please note, that if you feel unsure, contact your host, and ask for a help.

Steps to fix 404 not found webmaster tools errors (I assume you already know how to access .htaccess file of your wordpress blog):

1. First and very crucial, backup your .htaccess file, by downloading it and save it in your hard drive.

2. Once you done the step (1) above, go to your Google webmaster tools, copy the URL which causes 404 not found webmaster tools errors one by one, if you have many.

Copy it in notepad, that’s the easiest method.

3. Go back to your .htaccess file, add this code:

redirect 301 /2010/02/13/change-homelink-to-your-own-created-page http://www.blog.web6.org/change-homelink-to-your-own-created-page

The code above should be in one line. That’s one of my example post that i did redirect.

Replace my URL address with yours.

What that code will do, is redirected the 404 not found webmaster tools errors URL old page to the new one.