404s waste budget and frustrate users. The fix is usually a redirect — but not always, and doing it wrong is worse than leaving it.
Find them
- Check the Pages report in Search Console for 404s Google found
- Watch your server logs for repeated 404 hits
- Crawl your own site periodically and extract links
Redirect or let it 404?
- Redirect (301) when the content moved or a close equivalent exists
- Let it 404/410 when the content is gone with no replacement — a 404 is better than a redirect to something unrelated
Avoid chains and loops
Point redirects directly to the final destination. Chains (A → B → C) dilute signals and slow users down.
The mechanics
- Apache: Redirect 301 /old /new
- Nginx: return 301 /new; inside a location block
- Most CMSs and hosts have a redirect UI
Generate the rules
Use the free redirect generator to turn a list of old → new URLs into ready 301/302 rules for nginx or Apache, and clean up internal links with the link extractor.