404 Error
A 404 error is an HTTP status code indicating that the server cannot find the requested URL. It signals to search engines that the page does not exist.
Some 404s are normal (user typos, old bookmarks), but excessive 404s from broken internal links or removed pages without redirects waste crawl budget and create a poor user experience.
Return a proper 404 status code (not a soft 404 that returns 200) so Google removes the URL from its index. Provide a helpful 404 page with navigation options so users can find what they need.
In Next.js App Router, create `app/not-found.tsx` for your custom 404 page and use `notFound()` from `next/navigation` to trigger it programmatically. Indxel detects broken internal links and soft 404s during site audits.
Example
// app/not-found.tsx (Next.js)
export default function NotFound() {
return (
<main>
<h1>Page not found</h1>
<p>The page you are looking for does not exist.</p>
<a href="/">Go home</a>
</main>
);
}
// Trigger programmatically in a page:
import { notFound } from "next/navigation";
if (!data) notFound();Related terms
301 Redirect
A 301 redirect is an HTTP status code that permanently redirects one URL to another, telling search engines to transfer ranking signals (link equity) to the new URL.
Crawl Budget
Crawl budget is the number of URLs Googlebot will crawl on your site within a given period, determined by crawl rate limit (server capacity) and crawl demand (page importance).
Technical SEO
Technical SEO encompasses the server-side and infrastructure optimizations that help search engines efficiently crawl, render, index, and rank your website's content.
Stop shipping broken SEO
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