Xiangxiang SEO Training: How to view the 404 page of the website?

Q: What do you think of 404? A: 404 means the page or file being accessed does not exist. When there are many 404 errors on the website, it may cause the website to be downgraded. Generally, there are many situations that lead to 404, such as the URL in the page is a dead link or a called image, the CSS and JS files do not exist or the address is wrong, or even the image called in the CSS file does not exist. Because many Q: What do you think of 404?

?A: 404 means the page or file being visited does not exist. When there are many 404 errors on the website, it may cause the website to be downgraded. Generally, there are many situations that lead to 404, such as the URL in the page is a dead link or a called image, the CSS and JS files do not exist or the address is wrong, or even the image called in the CSS file does not exist. Because many companies' website designs are borrowed from other people's websites and the codes are pieced together, it is inevitable that the called files do not exist. My approach is to first check the images called by the website template files and css files. If I find that the file does not exist, I will delete the link first. If it cannot be deleted, I will upload a file with the same name as the link file to ensure that the link is not a dead link. Then use software to detect whether there are dead links on the website. I will also check whether there is a 404 return code based on the IIS log. Finally, I will configure a 404 error page for the website to ensure that the crawling path of search engine spiders is smooth.

Q: Why do we need to delete dead links if there is already a 404 error page?

A: Although the 404 return code will become 200 after setting the 404 error page on the website, if there are many dead links on the website, it will cause the search engine spiders to constantly crawl to the 404 error page, which will result in many duplicate pages, and the search engine will deduplicate them. This will also reduce the search engine's score for the website. In fact, when people visit many 404 pages, it will also affect the user experience and increase the bounce rate. In addition, because the internal link structure of the 404 error page is not very good, it will also affect the search engine spider's crawling path of the web page.

Q: So what should the 404 error page look like?

A: I think when creating a 404 page, you should consider three aspects: user experience, user guidance, and internal link structure.

1. User experience: There should be an obvious 404 sign to remind users that the content no longer exists, and there should be a countdown to return to the previous page.

2. The 404 should include a search function. If conditions permit, consider investing in content that each user likes or is related to based on the user portrait. I call it a thousand faces for a thousand users.

3. Internal link structure, which is designed for search engine spiders to crawl. The 404 page should have a navigation bar, randomly called content, content with high click volume, and even tags.

I think 404 is good enough here.

Of course, there are more advanced ways to play with 404 pages, but they belong to the field of black hat optimization and I will not go into details here. I once used the features of the 404 page to dominate the keyword screen, and the traffic increased dramatically.

Scenario explanation: I first answered the interviewer's question directly, told the interviewer what 404 is, and at the same time brought out the concept of dead links, and also explained the places where dead links are likely to occur and the reasons and solutions for dead links. Once the dead links are explained, the necessity of 404 error pages becomes clear. In this conversation, I planned two questions to trick the interviewer into asking. After I told the interviewer these two questions, he should have been convinced of my abilities. But this is not enough, I need him to feel that he must choose me, so in the end I threw out the black hat optimization trap and used words such as screen domination and traffic surge to attract him, but I didn't tell him how I did it. At this point he must be very interested in me, because I can give him a completely new perspective on a familiar skill point, which he may have never heard of before. In the end, I turned an interview into a wonderful marketing course.

Hypothetical scenario:

If you answer like this: "404 means the page does not exist. You can create a 404 error page for the website. Dead links will not cause 404 errors." If you answer like this, the interviewer will not have any interest in you. Although your answer is correct, the interviewer does not feel that you are great. What is the difference between you and other interviewees? Why should the company pay you more than ordinary SEO? I have always emphasized that the goal of an interview is not to give the right answer, but to make the interviewer feel that they have met you too late and that they can only choose you.