Do you know how HTTP status code error can impact user experience?
People who are searching for products & services like yours should know that your business exists in the first place.
If your customers cannot find your business online when they search for something online, you will not get a chance to sell.
That is why a website is very important for any small business, no matter how small it is.
Website boosts your
- Credibility
- increase your brand visibility
- improves lead generation for your business
- increase sales & revenue
Website is an excellent way to stay in touch with your customers.
It is one of the best ways to sell your products & services.
You should build a website to benefit your users, and gear any optimization toward making the user experience better.
One of those users is a search engine, which helps other users discover your content.
Although Google crawls billions of pages, it’s inevitable that some sites will be missed.
Learn More Why your business needs a website
Table of Contents
Why Google fails to crawl your Website
Google receives an error message when crawling your website due to many reasons
According to Google when crawlers miss a site, it’s frequently for one of the following reasons:
- The site isn’t well connected from other sites on the web
- You’ve just launched a new site and Google hasn’t had time to crawl it yet
- The design of the site makes it difficult for Google to crawl its content effectively
- Google received an error when trying to crawl your site for eg: HTTP error status code
- Your policy blocks Google from crawling the site
On of the reason google fails to crawl your site is because of HTTP error status code
Your website cannot be 100% perfect, but you need to keep working on improving your site for better user experience now & then.
It is a consistent effort & it pays off well.
Because great quality website that focus on users not only increase engagement on your site but reduces bounce rate & increase conversion
And conversion is revenue, and revenue is important for your business.
So as website owner and developer, you need to take care of these errors that might spoil user experience
Understanding & rectifying HTTP error code is critical
How to correct & rectify HTTP status error code
Google search console can be of great help to identify & rectify those errors.
In the coverage report of google search console you can view errors 3xx, 4xx & 5xx
Google search console dashboard showcases this information for you to take action
- No: of pages that are valid
- Pages with Errors under the excluded error section
- Pages with Warnings
- Contents or Pages that were not indexed
HTTP status codes are important for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as they play a role in how search engines crawl, index, and rank websites.
When Google crawls a website, it may encounter various types of errors that can impact the crawling and indexing process.
Businesses should correct and rectify these errors for great user experience because they can affect the performance, functionality, and usability of their websites or applications.
For example, a 404 Not Found error can frustrate users who are looking for a specific resource,
a 500 Internal Server Error can prevent users from accessing the website or application at all,
and a 301 Moved Permanently can affect the SEO ranking of the website or application.
Some errors are due to incorrect URL, outdated browser or plugins or page bugs
Other errors are server side errors, robot.txt errors, DNS errors or soft 404 errors
Learn more about this tool from Google Google Search Console
Why to fix HTTP status error code
It’s important to monitor and address these errors to ensure that Google can crawl and index your website effectively
Google search console will help you to identify these errors and help you to take action
Therefore, businesses should monitor, troubleshoot, and fix these errors as soon as possible to ensure a smooth and satisfying user experience.
As a business owner & developer, fixing theses errors can have immense benefit.
- facilitate effective communication
- aid troubleshooting
- impact search engine optimization
- user experience
- provide valuable insights for monitoring and performance analysis.
Fixing the above HTTP error codes can potentially increase engagement of users and decrease bounce rate on a website, depending on the type and cause of the error
For example, if a website has a lot of 404 Not Found errors, users might get frustrated and leave the website without exploring other pages or content
This can increase the bounce rate,which is the percentage of sessions that were not engaged
By fixing these errors and redirecting users to the correct or relevant pages, the website can improve the user experience and encourage more engagement
Does fixing HTTP status error code improve user experience
Yes, fixing these errors will definitely improve user experience of a website.
User engagement metrics are measurements that help companies track how users interact with their websites, apps, or content.
These metrics can provide insights into user behaviour, preferences, satisfaction, loyalty, and retention.
There are many user engagement metrics that can be used to measure different aspects of user engagement, such as:
- Page Views
- Page Per Session
- Average session Duration
- Unique Users
- Bounce Rate
- Average time on Page
- Event Tracking
- Traffic Source
- Conversion Rate
- Scroll Depth
- Abandonment Rate
- Dwell Time
Depending on what is important for your business, you need to track those business metrics that can impact your goals & objective
Not all metrics are relevant but tracking the key metrics will help you to see where you stand as a business.
Ensuring the website or application is functioning properly, the website can increase the availability and reliability of its service and attract more users.
Understanding and appropriately handling these codes can help optimise websites and address issues promptly.
How fixing errors benefits business
Correcting HTTP error status codes can significantly improve user experience on a website and help your business with more engagement and returns. Here are a few of the benefits to your business.
- It helps in clear communication. Clear communication helps reduce confusion and frustration, enhancing the overall user experience.
- Trust & Credibility: This promotes a positive perception of the website, its content, and the overall brand.
- Search Engine Visibility: This promotes a positive perception of the website, its content, and the overall brand.
- Navigation & User Flow: It prevents users from facing dead ends or broken links & allows users to navigate the website smoothly, improving their experience
- User Abandonment: A positive user experience increases the chances of user engagement, conversions, and repeat visits.
Conclusion
It’s important to monitor and manage status codes to optimise your website for search engines and improve SEO.
Users will occasionally come to a page that doesn’t exist on your site, either by following a broken link or typing in the wrong URL
Having a custom 404 page that kindly guides users back to a working page on your site can greatly improve a user’s experience.
Consider including a link back to your root page and providing links to popular or related content on your site.
By learning about the HTTP status error code you can troubleshoot problems on your site more quickly
Properly handling status codes ensures that search engines can effectively crawl and index your website, enhances user experience, and contributes to overall website health and performance.
While HTTP status codes themselves may not directly affect keyword rankings or other traditional SEO factors, they are an important aspect of technical SEO.
If you have a website and if you need any help from us to fix errors for your website, we will be pleased to help you out.
Now, we would like to ask, is your site accessible to users?
Are you currently taking any steps to address and correct HTTP error status codes on your website?