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404 Page Not Found in Google Search Console — How to Fix It

When Google tries to crawl a URL and gets a 404 response, it cannot index the page. This guide explains why 404s appear in Search Console and how to clean them up.

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Why 404 URLs appear in GoIndexed

GoIndexed discovers URLs from your XML sitemap. If a URL is in your sitemap but the page returns a 404 status code, it shows up with a Page Fetch = 404 status.

This commonly happens after a site redesign, when slugs are changed, or when pages are deleted without setting up redirects.

How to fix 404 errors

  1. Set up 301 redirects for moved pages

    If the page moved to a new URL, create a permanent 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one. This passes link equity and tells Google where the content now lives.

    In WordPress: use a redirect plugin (Redirection, Yoast) or add rules to .htaccess.

    In Next.js: add the old path to the redirects array in next.config.js.

    In Shopify: use Online Store → Navigation → URL Redirects.

  2. Remove deleted pages from your sitemap

    If the page no longer exists and has no replacement, remove it from your sitemap.xml. Leaving 404s in sitemaps wastes crawl budget.

  3. Return 410 for permanently deleted pages

    A 410 Gone response tells Google to remove the URL from its index immediately, faster than waiting for 404 to be processed.

What not to do

  • Don't leave 404 URLs in your sitemap — Google will keep trying to crawl them and waste your crawl budget
  • Don't redirect everything to the homepage — Google treats mass homepage redirects as soft 404s
  • Don't ignore a large number of 404s — it's a sign your sitemap is out of date

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Soft 404 — What It Means and How to Fix It

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