- What Exactly Is a 404 Error?
- Why 404 Errors Hurt Your PrestaShop Store
- What Causes 404 Errors on a Website?
- How to Find Broken Links on Your PrestaShop Store
- How to Fix 404 Errors Fast
- How to Prevent 404 Errors From Happening
- Do 404 Errors Affect SEO Rankings?
- How Do I Check Which URLs Return 404 Errors?
- Final Verdict: Keep Your Store's Links Working or Pay the Price
What Exactly Is a 404 Error?
A 404 error is an HTTP response code, not a page on your server. When your browser requests a URL, the server answers with a three-digit status code. The 404 status code on MDN Web Docs explains that it only indicates the resource is missing, without distinguishing whether that's temporary or permanent. That distinction matters: a temporary blip and a permanently deleted page require completely different fixes.
The HTTP 404 entry on Wikipedia clarifies the mechanics further: the code means your browser successfully communicated with the server, but the server couldn't provide the requested resource. So a 404 is not a connection failure, it's a "nothing lives here" answer. This is why 404s are so common after site migrations, product removals, or URL structure changes.
Why 404 Errors Hurt Your PrestaShop Store
Broken links damage your store in three concrete ways, and none of them are minor. First, they degrade user experience: a shopper clicking a product link from an email campaign or a Google result who hits a 404 will likely leave and buy from a competitor. Second, they waste link equity: if external sites link to a dead URL, that authority goes nowhere. Third, they waste crawl budget: Googlebot spends finite time on your domain, and every trip to a 404 is a trip it could have spent on a live product page.
As Lucky Orange's guide on finding broken links notes, not all broken links return 404s, some return 500-level server errors. But 404s are the most common and usually the easiest to fix because the problem is almost always a wrong URL, not a broken server.
A single broken link on a high-traffic page can cost you sales every day it stays live. That's why regular checks matter more than most store owners assume.
What Causes 404 Errors on a Website?
404 errors rarely appear out of nowhere. They almost always trace back to one of these five scenarios, each with a different fix:
- Deleted or moved pages without redirects. You removed an old product line or changed a category URL and didn't set up a 301 redirect. Anyone with the old link gets a 404.
- Typos in internal links. A manually typed URL with a missing letter or wrong slug points to a non-existent path.
- Changed URL structure. After migrating to PrestaShop or changing friendly URL settings, all your old links break unless you map them to new ones.
- External sites linking to old URLs. Another blog or directory linked to your product page last year, and that URL no longer exists.
- Expired or mistyped tracking links. Campaign URLs with old parameters, or shortened links that no longer resolve.
Identifying which of these caused a specific 404 is the first step in choosing the right solution. A deleted page needs a redirect or a new page. A typo needs correcting at the source. An external link needs a redirect on your end, since you can't edit the other site.
How to Find Broken Links on Your PrestaShop Store
You can't fix what you can't find. Fortunately, you have several reliable ways to locate 404 errors, from free browser extensions to dedicated crawling tools that map your entire site.
Check Individual Pages With a Browser Extension
For a quick spot check on a single page, the Website Broken Link and 404 Error Checker Chrome extension is a practical starting point. Install it, open any page on your store, and it scans all links on that page for 404 errors. This is ideal for checking a landing page, a blog post, or a category page you've just edited, but it only covers one page at a time.
Crawl Your Entire Site With SEO Spider
When you need a complete picture, a full site crawl is the way to go. The Screaming Frog SEO Spider tool is a free desktop application that crawls your entire domain exactly like a search engine bot would. It collects every URL it finds, then flags each one with its HTTP status code. Filter the results for "Client Error (4xx)" and you'll see every 404, along with the pages containing the broken links.
Screaming Frog's own tutorial demonstrates how to use the tool to find broken links and server errors, and it's particularly useful for PrestaShop stores because it follows the same navigation structure your customers and Googlebot use. Run it monthly, or after any significant change to your catalogue.
Use an Online Dead Link Checker
If you prefer not to install software, a web-based tool works too. Dead Link Checker is a free online service that crawls your site and identifies broken links for you to correct. As the service itself puts it, "There's no getting around it, error 404 pages are bad for business." The trade-off is that online checkers typically have crawl limits on their free tiers, so they suit smaller stores or quick checks better than deep crawls of large catalogues.
How to Fix 404 Errors Fast
Once you have a list of broken URLs, the fix depends on what that URL should do. Here's a practical decision framework for each 404 you find:
| Scenario | Recommended Action | Why It Works |
|---|---|---|
| Page moved to a new URL | Set up a 301 redirect from old URL to new one | Preserves link equity and sends users to live content |
| Page deleted, similar page exists | 301 redirect to the nearest relevant category or product | Keeps the user in your store instead of losing them |
| Page deleted, no replacement | Return a "410 Gone" status instead of 404 | Tells search engines the removal is permanent so they stop crawling it |
| Typo in an internal link | Correct the URL in the source page | Fixes the problem at its root, no redirect needed |
| External site links to a dead URL | Set up a 301 redirect on your end | You can't edit the other site, so redirect is your only control |
Set Up Redirects in PrestaShop
PrestaShop includes redirect management in its back office, so you don't need a separate module for basic cases. In the PrestaShop admin panel, navigate to the URL redirection settings under Shop Parameters, then Traffic and SEO. There you can add a new redirection by specifying the old URL and the target URL. Choose 301 for permanent moves, which is the right choice for almost all ecommerce redirects because it tells search engines to transfer ranking power to the new address.
Customise Your 404 Page as a Safety Net
No matter how diligent you are, some 404s will slip through, especially when external sites link to URLs you never knew existed. A well-designed 404 page turns that dead end into a recovery opportunity. At minimum, your PrestaShop 404 page should include a clear message that the page isn't available, a link back to your homepage, and a search bar. Many successful stores add links to best-selling categories or featured products to keep shoppers moving.
PrestaShop lets you edit the 404 page template directly, so you can tailor it to your brand voice and add whatever recovery elements you need. Test it on mobile too, since a large share of ecommerce traffic comes from phones.
How to Prevent 404 Errors From Happening
Prevention beats correction every time. Adopt these habits and your 404 count will stay close to zero:
- Audit your site monthly. Run a full crawl with a tool like Screaming Frog after any major change, and at least quarterly as routine maintenance.
- Set up redirects before you delete anything. Plan your URL mapping before removing old products or restructuring categories, not after.
- Monitor external backlinks. Use a backlink tool to see which external sites link to your URLs, so you know what will break if you change a path.
- Check links in your email campaigns. Marketing emails archive permanently, so a product link from last season's campaign will 404 once that product is gone.
- Use consistent URL conventions. Decide on a slug format and stick to it, so manual typos become less likely.
The cheapest 404 fix is the one you never need because you planned the redirect in advance. A few minutes of planning during a migration saves hours of cleanup later.
Do 404 Errors Affect SEO Rankings?
Yes, but not in the way many people assume. A 404 page itself doesn't directly penalise your site; search engines treat 404s as a normal part of the web. The damage comes indirectly. When Googlebot finds a 404, it stops passing link equity through that URL. If a high-authority site links to one of your dead pages, that authority is lost rather than flowing to your store.
There's also a crawl budget consideration. Google allocates a limited number of crawls to each site, and every wasted crawl on a 404 is a crawl that didn't happen on a product page that could rank. For large PrestaShop stores with thousands of products, this adds up quickly. Finally, user experience signals matter. If visitors consistently hit 404s from your search results or email links, they bounce fast, and engagement metrics correlate with rankings.
In short, 404s won't get you manually penalised, but they erode the factors that help you rank. Fixing them is standard hygiene for any serious online store.
How Do I Check Which URLs Return 404 Errors?
The most reliable method is to crawl your entire domain with a desktop crawler like Screaming Frog SEO Spider and export the list of 4xx responses, and cross-reference them against your sitemap and internal link structure. This gives you both the broken URLs and the pages where those links appear, so you know exactly what to fix.
For a faster but narrower check, use Google Search Console. Under the Pages report, filter by "Not found (404)" to see which indexed URLs are returning errors, and "Submitted URL not found (404)" for sitemap pages that are broken. Search Console only shows URLs Google knows about, so it won't catch typos in internal links that never got crawled. That's why running both checks gives the most complete picture.
Final Verdict: Keep Your Store's Links Working or Pay the Price
404 errors are not a cosmetic issue or a minor technical quirk. They directly undermine the three things that keep an online store growing: customer trust, search visibility, and crawl efficiency. A shopper who hits a dead product link rarely returns to try again, and every authority link pointing to a broken URL is equity you never receive.
The good news is that fixing 404s is entirely within your control. Regular monthly crawls, disciplined redirect planning before any catalogue change, and a well-designed 404 fallback page will keep the vast majority of broken links off your store. The effort required is small, measured in minutes per week, while the cost of ignoring the problem is measured in lost sales and slipping rankings.
Start with a crawl today to see where you stand. Then set up a routine: crawl monthly, monitor Search Console weekly, and always map redirects before you delete or move a page. If you manage a large catalogue and need to handle redirects at scale without manual grunt work.