SEO showing technical problem on 404 page

FayeWine
Tourist
7 0 3

Hello, 

I've been using SEOBility tool and it says there is a technical problem on my 404 page saying it can't be found. This wasn't the case up until a couple of months ago. 

Any idea of why this happened and how to resolve? 

Thank you. 

Replies 7 (7)

Olivia
Shopify Staff
1695 146 302

Hey, @FayeWine!

Welcome to Shopify Community. My name is Olivia and I work here.

Thank you for sharing your question with our network. I'd be happy to help you out and make sure you get the information you need. 

By definition, a 404 page indicates a page that does not exist. Since 404 pages are non-existent, they cannot be indexed either. Rather, what would be hurtful to your site's search engine optimization is if you had links on your site leading to 404 pages. Perhaps this is the case?

I'm not entirely sure what you were seeing using the SEOBility tool before, but perhaps you can provide us with further clarification on what you expect to happen with 404 error pages.

I look forward to connecting.

Warm regards, 

Olivia | Social Care @ Shopify 
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FayeWine
Tourist
7 0 3

Hi Olivia, 

Thanks for getting back to me. 
Indeed, I was also confused by this 404 not being found but it appears that for some reason it can't crawl my 404 page. I've attached the screenshot of the analysis. The problem appeared back in March. Before then I had 0 technical issues with my pages... 

Thanks, 

Screenshot 2021-05-16 at 21.52.01.png

KieranR
Shopify Partner
333 27 115

The URL path /404 doesn't exist within Shopify URL routing. So it's working as designed, and returning an HTTP404 status.

Same would happen in you tried to go to https://quaranvino.wine/sdfsdfsd (or any nonsense URL) which will be equally "non existant" within Shopify. 

Perhaps the URL /404 was previously linked to in a previous CMS (not really best practise, but anyway) and then SEOBility is simply trying to recrawl that. Or maybe it is a "default" path that SEOBility attempts to crawl for some reason? Or perhaps someone has incorrectly created internal links to the /404 URL within the theme. If SEO Bility is any good (personally haven't used it) then it should tell you where it found that URL to begin with. 

But it doesn't seem like a problem to me. A bigger problem would be if you had a bunch of internal links pointing to that broken page though.

To resolve the error anyway? You first need to understand how SEOBility is discovering this page, and then work backwards from there to find at what point a fix needs to be applied.

Full time Shopify SEO guy, based in NZ. Sometimes freelance outside the 9-5.
FayeWine
Tourist
7 0 3

Sorted - I had a poke about and found them. Thanks! 

Olivia
Shopify Staff
1695 146 302

Hi, @FayeWine!

Thanks for following up with us and letting us know you were able to sort it out.

Would you mind sharing your solution with us for future readers that might run into the same question?

Warm regards,

Olivia | Social Care @ Shopify 
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FayeWine
Tourist
7 0 3

I just dug a bit deeper and was able to find the pages with the links that were going to the 404 page and then update the links. 

Olivia
Shopify Staff
1695 146 302

Fair enough, @FayeWine.

I'm so glad that's all sorted out, but if further questions come up don't hesitate to reconnect with us.

Warm regards,

Olivia | Social Care @ Shopify 
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 - Was your question answered? Mark it as an Accepted Solution
 - To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Shopify Blog