You want to know how you can redirect 404 to homepage in the WordPress blog, well, today I will teach you how to fix this so if your blog has any 404 error pages in the WordPress blog then you can redirect those pages or posts to the homepage.
We all bloggers and website owners neglect 404 errors as they thought, it will not affect the website but I experience the effect on one of my WordPress blogs where it gives a negative impact in so many different ways.
In common ways, you will lose potential visitors who might convert into customers if the page working fine, those visitors exit from the website as they discover 404 pages and shifted to another site.
How to Redirect 404 to Homepage in WordPress Blog
Never Ignore 404 errors in WordPress Site, and there is one solution which you can use is that you can redirect 404 to the homepage and they will redirect to the home page and you can offer them more information about your services, products, or informative articles. By redirecting 404 error pages to the homepage, you can give them something in advance.
While your visitors are redirected to the homepage, in the meantime, you can fix 404 errors.
What is a 404 Error?
Starting a blog isn’t just a thing where your work is done, but adding valuable content, adding quality graphics, and handling some WordPress Errors which can destroy all your efforts, so fixing them is as important as adding new content.
404 Error is one of the common errors in websites that, website owner, developer, blogger encounter while handling the site. Even visitors also encounter this error quite frequently, as they land on websites and some pages work fine and some have 404 errors.
In this error, the affected page use custom made 404 pages to show the visitor that this page has nothing to show.
It is a common HTTP Status Code that you want to access on the website, can’t be found.
According to Google, the 404 errors never give any negative impact on the rankings in search engines. However, it is advisable to fix the 404 pages, if you don’t want to lose the visitor. As it gives a negative impact on the visitor’s mind that this website doesn’t have the proper information.
What Causes 404 Errors in WordPress Sites?
There are so many causes behind 404 errors, and it might cause because of the misspelled URL because sometimes users enter misspelled website address in the browser.
Also, sometimes, the website owner loses website content while server malfunction or while transferring the website could also be the reason for 404 errors.
Most Common Cause:
When you want to update your old post and want to update the title but at the same time, the website owner changes the URL as well, but you know old posts already indexed in the search engines, so the new URL will not exist in search engine and when user visit the indexed post, but because of URL change, the page becomes 404 pages.
So, in this case, you need to redirect the old URL to a new URL.
How to Find 404 Errors in the Website?
You can find all the 404 errors on the website by login into the Google Search Console and check for Crawl Errors. There, you will get the list of 404 Errors on the entire website.
How to Redirect 404 Errors to Homepage with Plugins in WordPress?
People who don’t know the coding-related tasks can also try Best Redirection Plugins which helps non-technical website owners who running blogs or websites on WordPress CMS. So, they can use many 404 redirection plugins for WordPress, and below, I am going to mention some of the best plugins for redirect 404 errors.
Best Redirection Plugins for WordPress Website
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All 404 Redirect to Homepage – Free [Recommended for Small Sites]
It is quite different and useful plugins available on WordPress, here you don’t need to perform manually creating redirects for single URLs, but with All 404 Redirect to Home Plugin you can redirect 404 pages to the homepage. It means people encounter the broken link on blogs or websites can redirect 404 errors to the homepage easily.
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Safe Redirect Manager – Free
Safe Redirect Manager is a free 404 redirection plugin for WordPress blogs. It comes with quite easy to use interface that redirection is easy. This plugin is one of the best choices for bloggers who are running niche sites. It even allows website owners to choose the type of HTTP Status Code as well.
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5sec Redirect – $11 [Highly Recommended]
5sec Redirect comes with a premium badge because it is made for Advanced Users who are running big sites and authority blogs. In addition to redirecting broken links, this plugin comes with features like URL Cloaking, Statistics on Redirects, and much more.
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Redirection – Free
If you want to choose a redirection plugin with more than 1 million active users. Redirection Plugin is one of the most popular 404 redirect plugins in the WordPress database. This plugin comes with a FREE badge and it is simple but perform the task easily.
How to Use Redirection Plugin to Redirect 404 Pages to Homepage?
Here we are going to use All 404 Redirect to Homepage and I will give you step by step process to redirect 404 to homepage.
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Step 1: Install “All 404 Redirect to Homepage” Plugin
Log in to WordPress Admin Dashboard and go to the Plugins section. Now click on Add New and search for All 404 Redirect to Homepage plugin. Once install done, click on Activate to enable the functions of this plugin.
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Step 2: Customize All 404 Redirect to Homepage
To enable the plugin functions, go to Settings, and now, go to All 404 Redirect to the Homepage settings section. Now, Enable the plugin, and Enter the URL of the Homepage in the Redirect all 404 pages to section and it will redirect all 404 pages to homepage.
Click on the Update Options button to save all the changes done.
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Step 3: Now Check Old 404 Errors
As, I already explain to you how to find 404 errors in the website above, and once you have the list of 404 pages on your website. Start to test them, whether they redirect to the homepage or not.
If your 404 pages are redirected to the homepage, then the plugin works fine. But, make sure you need to Customize Homepage in a way where the user will get more options to read or checkout.
Final Verdict:
So, this was my help for those who are facing 404 errors in websites. If you learn how to redirect 404 to the homepage in the WordPress blog then let me know in the comment section. If you like this post then don’t forget to share it with your friends on social media.
You Share, We all Grow 😊