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Website Error Pages and Redirects

Error handling is part of the customer journey. Removed products, mistyped addresses and changed URLs are normal; the site should return truthful HTTP responses, explain what happened and preserve valuable routes where…

3 published guides0 subtopicsUpdated 21 July 2026

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The main guide for this topic

Practical guide

Website Redirects Explained

A redirect sends a request from one URL to another. It is appropriate when content has moved or a canonical route must be enforced, but it should not be used to conceal missing content or compensate f…

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Articles in this section

Practical guide5 November 2026

Website Redirects Explained

A redirect sends a request from one URL to another. It is appropriate when content has moved or a canonical route must be enforced…

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Practical guide28 September 2026

Redirect Chains and Loops

A redirect chain occurs when one URL redirects through several intermediate URLs. A loop occurs when redirects eventually point ba…

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Practical guide24 August 2026

Custom 404 Pages

A custom 404 page should confirm that the requested page is unavailable while helping the visitor recover. It must still return an…

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About this section

Information checked: 21 July 2026.

In brief: Redirect only when there is a genuine equivalent; otherwise return a useful 404 or 410 response.

Choose the correct outcome

URL outcomes
Situation	Recommended response	Reason
Page moved permanently	301 or 308 to the closest equivalent	Preserves a clear change of location
Temporary alternate location	302 or 307 where the change is genuinely temporary	Original URL remains the intended location
Content removed with no replacement	404 or 410 plus useful error page	Truthful response avoids irrelevant redirects
User not authorised	401 or 403 as appropriate	Do not disguise permission failure as not found without a reason
Server failure	5xx with monitoring and retry handling	Signals a service fault rather than missing content

Maintain a redirect register

Old URL and new URL.
Reason and approval date.
Redirect type and expected duration.
Source of traffic or links.
Test result and owner.
Review or removal date for temporary rules.

Avoid the home-page redirect trap

Sending every deleted URL to the home page is confusing and can be interpreted as a soft 404. Redirect only to a page that satisfies substantially the same need, and let genuinely missing content return an error status.

How to check the result

Test old URLs with an HTTP checker, follow the complete chain, inspect the final canonical and confirm that the destination matches the original user intent.

The most common weak point

Migrations commonly use a broad rule that sends every old URL to the home page. Users lose the information they expected, reports become full of soft 404s and staff cannot see which valuable content was genuinely lost. Another failure is leaving temporary redirects and chains indefinitely.

Operational records

Redirect map with reasons and owners
List of intentional 404/410 URLs
Pre- and post-launch crawl exports
Monitoring report for broken internal links
Review date for temporary redirects

A practical next move

Test a representative sample of old pages, deleted pages, mistyped URLs and protected routes. Record the exact status, destination and customer recovery path for each.

Sources and date checked

This practical guidance was checked against the following primary sources. Date checked: 21 July 2026.