A 404 means the server has no page at that address. That is a normal answer for a URL you never published. It becomes a problem when your own site still sends people there. The link in the menu, the button in the footer, or the URL in the sitemap is then a broken link.
Fix the pointer, or retire the address
If the page moved, update the link to the new address. If the page is gone and something replaced it, redirect the old address to that replacement with a permanent redirect. If nothing replaced it, remove the link. Do not leave a button that opens an error.
Sending every dead URL to the homepage feels tidy and reads badly. The visitor asked for a product and landed on a slogan. Redirect only when the new page answers the same need. Otherwise let the old URL 404, and make sure nothing important still links to it.
Where broken links hide
- A header or footer link, which then fails on every page.
- A sitemap that still lists last year's campaign URLs.
- Links inside old posts that point at pages you deleted.
- Buttons whose address was typed wrong, missing a slash or a letter.
A template bug is the one to fix first, because one edit repairs every page. A single old article link can wait. The report groups issues so you can see that pattern. How to read the report is the short version of which rows matter.
A sitemap URL that 404s is both a broken address and a bad list. Take it out of the sitemap, and redirect it only if a real page replaced it.
After you change a link, click it. After you add a redirect, request the old address and confirm you land on the new one without a chain of three hops. Long redirect chains are slow and easy to get wrong. One hop to the right page is the goal. While you are there, remove the old address from the sitemap so you are not advertising a URL that only exists to bounce. One broken button in a shared footer is worth more than a dozen forgotten links in old posts.
Start with the pages people use most: the homepage, the menu, and the main offer. A dead link there is seen by everyone. A dead link in a five year old post is seen by almost no one, so fix it after the shared ones. If you cannot find a replacement page, remove the link and leave the sentence intact. A sentence that still makes sense is better than a link that goes nowhere.
Where it sits in the score
Broken links and fetch errors are technical checks. Technical is 20 percent of the overall score. They are not the whole letter, and they are not optional if the main menu is the thing that fails. The weights are published on the methodology page.
The free scan checks the homepage and the links it can see from there. A full crawl is what walks the rest of the site. Start with the homepage. If the main buttons already 404, you do not need a deeper crawl to know what to fix.
