Complete Solutions To Deal With 404 Not Found Error On Blogger

404 Page not found is indeed a general issue / problem found on any CMS, Blogger is included. After being so long maintaining our blog, like it or not, there will be page not found that is reported by our website traffic report services like Google Analytics or StatCounter. In Google Webmaster Tools too reporting this issue.

I have received this report repetitively regarding page not found by my visitors and then logged by the web traffic analytic service. Then I fix the problem by directing it to my home page to reduce the disappointment of my visitors.

Actually the page not found issue is not always made by us deleting the certain posts that caused the error, it is often times because somebody else pointed to our post yet they posted the incomplete URL like for example, myblog.com/post-title.htm...the guy forgot to include the L. It should be html not htm. So when someone click on the incomplete URL, he/she lands to not found page. This is just a small example of very small mistake can cause the error.

So anything could happen that will produce page not found error on anyone blog. Albeit Google says this thing will not effect our blog's performance on their search engine result. But still, it effects to our visitors experience when spending time on our blog.

Now Blogger has included Custom Redirects feature on Search Preferences option. This is very handy utility to redirect not found page to any page of your choice one by one.

I use Custom Redirects, after viewing report from Crawl Errors section on Google Webmaster Tool. In there you will be notified of the existing not found URL and possible page on your site or other site that link to this URL.

So I have a not found URL http://blogtipsarena.blogspot.com/r/s/ that is linked by those URL.

It's up to me whether to fix it first or simply hit the Mark As Fixed button to deprive the report. But I won't do that. I will fix it.

How to redirect 404 not found page to certain posts or homepage automatically?

And there are two fixes to deal the not found error on Blogspot. One is manually and secondly automatically. The second is more time-saver than the first. I prefer the second solution only if I think the issue is not relating to specific post. Read on if you want to know more.

The manual solution.

Why I call it manual, because you are going to need to fix each not found error one by one, so if there is 100 not found errors reported on Google Webmaster Tool then you have to perform Custom Redirect 100 times.

I prefer to use this solution only if the not found error is relating to a real post. For example, if the URL of not found error is this.

http://blogtipsarena.blogspot.com/2014/10/rightest-way-to-find-most-searched.htm.

And the URL problem is because not having the L at the end of the URL string. This happens sometimes, and other similar situation also found by me like the URL is incomplete more than just L like this.

http://blogtipsarena.blogspot.com/2014/10/rightest-way-to-find-most....

And those wrong URL is intended to go to the real and exist URL which is this one;

http://blogtipsarena.blogspot.com/2014/10/rightest-way-to-find-most-searched.html.

So if this is the case, then I use custom redirects feature. By doing exactly like in this picture.

Then it will be directed to the real post, this thing usually happens because other blogger mistakenly published the URL on their post or other a forum users sharing the URL incompletely. After we have set the custom redirection from now and forward each time other people clicked on the wrong URL they will be directed to the right URL.

Automatic solution.

This solution is time-saver, all you need to do is simply a line of codes to custom page not found box then all the not found errs will be directed to your blog's home page.

This is the codes you should paste to page not found box.

Unfortunately, the page you are now landing doesn't exist, it's probably due to many reasons.
Therefore you will be brought to homepage shortly.
<script type = "text/javascript">
BSPNF_redirect = setTimeout(function() {
location.pathname= "/"
}, 5000);
</script>

See the following image to guide you paste the above codes. (Settings -> Search Preferences -> Errors and Redirections).

Of course you can alter the lines started from Unfortunately...shortly according your wish.

By doing that you will ensure your visitors will find an URL they are searching or saving their times from not found error prison :d.

Hope you find this post useful for your effort to build a user friendly blog possible.