20 Common Website Error Pages and Their Impacts
As you know the mindset of consumers, as well as business owners, has been changed. Consumers believe a business with a website is more credible. Business owners need to have a website to increase Organization’s credibility, brand visibility and attract new customers. You should know some common website error pages that may impact your business and user experience.
Website Error pages happen. But you should monitor and cleverly strengthen your website error pages with your branding. This will increase user experience, brand reputation and increase visitors’ chances of retention on your website.
If you are a business owner or marketer, website developer, or product manager I’m sure you will never want to lose your website visitors.
Let’s under and discuss in detail:
- What is a Website Error Page?
- What could be the reasons for the website error page?
- Five Common HTTP Status Code Errors
- 20 Common Website Errors Pages
- Impact of Website Error Pages on SEO
What is a Website Error Page?
You must have observed the following issues while opening a website or web page.
- Page doesn’t open properly or
- It’s a blank page or page not found or not able to connect
- Or it shows some message with HTTP Error (which you or visitor might not understand it what’s wrong?)
- Also, it is sometimes redirected to a different page, etc.
Good Examples of Website Error Pages View
Please try to observe how smartly they use their branding and communications in their website error pages.
Amazon 404 Error Page Not Found Error
Bitly 404 Error Page
What could be the reasons for the website error page?
As I mentioned earlier, nobody wants to lose their visitor or want to give a bad user experience or lose business. Why website goes down, error pages come. There is no single answer to it. Even sometimes website Administrator failed to understand why this happened. They generally take some time, analyze it and fix it.
Website errors means either it’s
- Client Errors (i.e.; also known as 4XX Code Errors) – Just because of improper syntax or request content/path is not correct or the page no more exist. This is not a good sign for businesses, users, and search engines too.
- Server Errors – (i.e.; also known as 5XX Code Errors) – just because the server is not able to respond or connect.
Impact – This is again a big issue for SEOs. Because if the page doesn’t load or connect fast and on time then it’s bad UX. Same for Search Engine will not able to scroll and index your page at that point in time.
5 Common reasons why your website is down
- Unreliable Website Hosting
- CMS Complications
- DNS Connections
- DoS (Denial of Service) Attacks
- Poor Coding (Script level error)
Know more in details about 5 reasons why website down
Accordingly to Google sometimes users see error pages due to types and poor internet connectivity. Learn how to fix connection errors.
Five Common HTTP Status Code Errors
“As you know, HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). All HTTP response status codes are separated into five classes or categories. The first digit of the status-code defines the class of response, while the last two digits do not have any classifying or categorization role.
Here are five classes defined by the standard:
- 1xx informational response – the request was received, continuing process
- 2xx successful – the request was successfully received, understood, and accepted
- 3xx redirection – further action needs to be taken in order to complete the request
- 4xx client error – the request contains bad syntax or cannot be fulfilled
- 5xx server error – the server failed to fulfill an apparently valid request”
Source: Please follow wikipedia
20 Common Website Errors Pages – mean, reason and what to do?
I hope you understood the importance of a website for your business and for your users. What is the website error page and reasons?
Still, if in case you have any questions, please write me at santosh@rankkite.com. I will be happy to connect with you and surely try my best to answer your question at the earliest.
Important Read:
It’s very important and must for every SEOs or Digital marketer and Website Developers to understand the HTTP Status codes and HTTP errors pages on the website. Let’s start and learn types of HTTP Status codes and website error pages meaning, reason, and how to fix it.
- 200 HTTP Status Code – Good
- 301 HTTP Status Code – Permanent Redirect
- 302 HTTP Status Code – Temporary Redirect
- 400 Bad Request
- 401 Unauthorized
- 403 Forbidden Server Error
- 404 Page Not Found
- 408 Request Timeout Server Error
- 410 Status Code Permanently Removed
- 500 Internet Server Error
- 501 Not Implemented Server Error
- 502 Bad Gateway or Service Temporarily Overloaded Server Error
- 503 Server Unavailable Error
- Bonus Not Secure Page Error
- Connection Refused by Host Error
- File Contains No Data
- Failed DNS Look-up
- TCP Error
- Cannot Add Form Submission Result to Bookmark List
- Thank You Page Error – Order Not Found
1- 200 HTTP Status Code – Good
HTTP 200 status code is something very good to have in your website or web pages. For SEOs, you need to do nothing for these pages. This is good for search engine, users and all referral link source of your website. When you do quality score analysis of your website or Web pages, you must have observed these type of report from Ahrefs or SEMRush SEO Tools.
2- 301 HTTP Status Code – Permanent Redirect
301 HTTP redirect is one of the preferred SEO method used by SEOs in many reasons. There are lots of debates and Google algorithm updated earlier like, 301 redirect impact page rank or not?
- In 2013, Matt Cutts from Google confirmed, 301 redirects result in around a 15% loss of page rank as one page is linked to another page.
- Later in 2016, Google confirmed that 0% page rank loss via 301 page redirect.
But make sure you don’t redirect multiple pages 301 permanent redirect to a particular page. Also, remember redirecting the page to a no-relevant page is never recommended and may loss the page rank.
Note- Google: Does not matter which 301, 302 or 307 redirects, all pass page rank.
3- 302 HTTP Status Code – Temporary Redirect
Both 301 and 302 redirect end goal is the all most same and search engine has no impact on page rank. Only think is 302 redirect is a temporary redirection to a particular page for a certain period of time.
302 temporary redirect is a web standard but there is possibility other search engines treat it differently than Google. Only think you need to understand that search engine may not pass the link equity to 302 page redirect that it passes to 301 page redirect.
4- 400 Bad Request Server Error
While browsing any page or URL you find 400 bas request error means it could be a client error. The reason can be like user’s internet connection is not stable, security issue with the operating system or browser. Sometimes 400 error page comes due to problem within the server itself.
What to do?
- Check the URL typed or copy pasted. Make sure to check the syntax errors or typo errors.
- Clear your browser history or cache. Read How to do it.
(1. Press Window + R >> type “recent” then press enter and clear It. 2, Press Window + R >> type “%temp%” then press enter and clear it or 3. Press Ctrl + H and clear entire history)
- As your system administrator to clear DNS cache. Read how to do it.
5- 401 Unauthorized Error Page
This error may show up in different formats, such as “401 Unauthorized”, “Authorization required”, or “HTTP Error 401 – Unauthorized”
The HTTP error 401 occurs when you need to enter credentials (a user name and password) to access the web page and the request lacks validation. It simply denies you to access.
What to do?
Fixing 401 error pages is quite simple
- Check the URL for errors
- If the URL is correct, go to the site’s homepage and look for a login link. Enter your username and password, and then try the page again.
- For page authorization, contact the website admin.
6- 403 Forbidden Server Error
This is similar to 402 errors but 403 errors basically mean Access Denied. Also you may means it the server is working fine but you have no login opportunity available with you anymore or to connect to the server.
What to do?
- Check for an error in the URL and generate a clean .htaccess file. ( Know what is .htaccess file)
- Clear your browser’s cache and cookies.
- Contact your service provider if the issue is still not resolved.
7- 404 Page Not Found Error
For better user experience and retaliation of user 404 error page design is very importance for SEO and search engine.
This is a very common error. There are two simple reasons to it
- Page could not be found on the server. Usually this means a broken link or entered URL has some syntax or character entered by you is wrong or missing.
- This page was available earlier but no longer available.
What to do?
- Refresh page
- Check the URL for errors
- Clear your browser’s cache and cookies.
- Contact the Website administrator.
8- 408 Request Timeout Error
Sometime we give multiple tasks to the server in a particular time before completing one task request. Because the server could not accept your request it shows 408 Request Timeout server errors and you have to wait.
Sometime it takes long time to get response from the server and servers sometimes close the connection without sending this error response.
What to do?
- Refresh the page and clear tasks.
- Check your internet connection
- Increase server resources
9- 410 Status Code Error – Permanently Removed
Sometimes SEOs permanently removed some web pages from their server. Like, 404 pages not found in the server (Means there was no such page in the server). But 410 means earlier it was in the server but now page has permanently removed or deleted.
What to do?
You have nothing to do now. But for future before deleting any page from the server make sure you have not used that URL in any of your referral traffic source. Because 410 error means you are sending the user and bots to a dead resource.
10- 500 Internal Server Error
The HTTP 500 error page code indicates something not right in the server or problem in the server only. This error has not connection with your computer internet connectivity or browser issue.
500 Internal server error is not good for your website health, not good for SEOs and from search engine prospective. Even you will lose your visitors and search engine bots will be lost and give a poor signal to page scrolling, indexing and ranking.
What to do?
You need an immediate and permanent solution to this 500 internal server error.
- Contact your hosting provider or system administrator immediately.
- Find out the right web hosting service solution for your website.
11- 501 Not Implemented Server Error
The 501 (Not Implemented) server error means the server doesn’t recognize or support the request method.
Request methods indicate the desired action to be performed for a given resource: GET, HEAD, POST, PUT, DELETE, CONNECT, OPTIONS, TRACE, PATCH. These are defined by RFC 7231, section 4: Request methods.
The only methods servers need to support are GET and HEAD, as GET is the default request and HEAD returns the headers of a GET request.
By default, A 501 response is cacheable. When cached, it’s stored to be retrieved later instead of making another request to the server.
What to do?
- Refresh the page and clear the browser cache
- Make sure you used the correct URL
- DNS flush and contact your hosting service provider
12- 502 Service Temporarily Suspended or Overloaded Error
The 502 (Bad Gateway) website server error pages mean that while attempting to fulfill the request, the server acted as a gateway and received an invalid response from an inbound server.
The gateway can refer to different things regarding networking, and this error is not usually something you can fix as it requires a fix to the web server or the proxies you are accessing.
What to do?
- Refresh the page and clear the browser cache
- Make sure you used the correct URL
- DNS flush and Contact your host
13- 503 Server Unavailable Error
The 503 (Service Unavailable) server error means the server is not ready to handle the request.
Often this is due to scheduled maintenance or a temporary overload and is resolved after some time. The server can send a Retry-After header suggesting how long to wait before retrying the request.
A 503 response can also appear when a server is merely refusing the connection.
What to do?
- Refresh the page
- Make sure you used the correct URL
- Temporarily deactivate your CDN and contact your host
14- Bonus Not Secure Page Error (HTTP Not Secure)
Here’s a bonus one for you. If your site loads over HTTP, Google will flag your site to users in bright red text as “Not secure.”
With Google’s SSL requirements, bad SSL implementations can ruin your SEO.
What to do?
- Make sure your website is running with HTTPS not HTTP
- Take and Integrate SSL certifications
- Contact your system administrator and check again.
15- Connection Refused By Host Error
This error message, like the 403 error, usually means that the user does not have the authorization to access the site or that an attempted login failed, usually because the password used was not correct.
16- File Contains No Data
Users will see a File Contains No Data error when a page is present, but nothing shows up. This can be caused by bad table formatting or stripped header information.
17- Failed DNS Lookup
When a website’s URL cannot be translated, a Failed DNS Look-Up error usually appears. This error usually appears on commercial sites due to overload.
18- TCP Error Encountered to Server
TCP Error Encountered While Sending Request to Server. When there is a problem on the line between the user and the requested site, this error message will appear. As this can often be a hardware-related issue, this error should always be reported to a network administrator.
19- Cannot Add Form Submission Result to Bookmark List
When a user attempts to save a type of form that is not a document or a web address they will get this error.
20- Checkout or Thank You Page Error – Order Not Found
This type of website error page found most of the eCommerce sites while clicking on proceed to pay.
This is one of the major reasons of duplicate transactions or multiple orders or abandonment cart.
If you have a WordPress or woo commerce website, click here to know more about thank you pr checkout page error.
Takeaway:
I hope you find this article helpful for your website SEO and user experience. Website error pages are very common. Nowadays designing, and developing a website is not difficult. The most difficult part is the quality of the website and server maintenance. These two things are equally important to exist in a competitive market in front of your customers and search engines.
In case I missed out any other point from my research and experience. Please feel free to comment below or write me at “santosh@rankkite.com”. I shall be very much thankful to you. Remember Together we can learn, grow and help others.