404 Errors | Govstack

Google indexes and displays old, out-of-date pages in search results even after you've removed them or launched a new website. When visitors try to visit these pages, they will get a 404 Error page, which provides a link to the homepage and a search bar.

Unfortunately, there is no way to tell Google to un-index these older pages, but you can set up redirects to newer pages when this occurs. It is also a good idea to check your Google Analytics for URLs that are frequently generating 404 errors and set up redirects that will take visitors straight to the correct page on your website.

Setting up redirects

For URLs that are generating 404 errors, you can contact our support team with your information using the following format, and we will set up the appropriate redirect for you:

Old URL (the one generating the 404 error)	New URL (the appropriate page in the new website)
ghddigitalpss.com/work/	ghddigitalpss.com/about/

Discover your 404 error reports in Google Analytics

After you've logged into your Google Analytics account, you can create a report to view:

Adding reports

Select the view you would like to add the report to and click save.

Adding multiple views

If you need to add to multiple views, go to Customization > Custom Reports and click Actions > Edit.

Under Views, select the drop down and select all views you would like to add the report to (or select all to pick all of them).

Accessing 404 error reports

Access the report by:

Clicking “Customization”
Selecting “Custom Reports”
Clicking the report

Make sure that you update the time range.

google analytics web site data

Viewing your report

It's important to understand what the different dimensions (columns) in a report mean.

404 errors from internal links
Dimension	Meaning	Note
Page	Page looks at the path of the URL of the 404 error	Often anything after “/common/pagenotfound.aspx?aspxerrorpath=” is what the user was trying to navigate to
Previous Page Path	The page the user came from	This is likely the source of the broken link
Page Title	Title of page for the 404 error	N/A
Pageviews	How many times the error page has been hit	N/A

404 errors from external links
Dimension	Meaning	Note
Page	Page looks at the path of the URL of the 404 error	Often anything after “/common/pagenotfound.aspx?aspxerrorpath=” is what the user was trying to navigate to
Full Referrer	Where the user came from to hit the broken page	N/A
Page Title	Title of page for the 404 error	N/A
Pageviews	How many times the error page has been hit	N/A