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Why Crawl Errors Matter for Your Website If Google cannot crawl your pages, it cannot index them. If it cannot index them, your pages will never appear in search results. That is why fixing crawl errors in Google Search Console should be a priority for every website owner. Crawl errors signal that Googlebot tried to access a URL on your site and failed. Left unresolved, these errors can hurt your rankings, waste your crawl budget, and create a poor experience for visitors who land on broken pages. In this guide, we will walk you through every type of crawl error you might encounter, show you exactly where to find them in Google Search Console, and give you clear, actionable steps to fix each one. No advanced technical knowledge required. What Are Crawl Errors in Google Search Console? Crawl errors occur when Googlebot attempts to reach a page on your website but cannot load it successfully. Google Search Console reports these errors so you can identify and resolve them before they impact your search visibility. There are two broad categories: Site-level errors – Problems that prevent Google from accessing your entire website (DNS errors, server connectivity issues, robots.txt fetch failures). URL-level errors – Problems affecting specific pages (404 not found, soft 404s, redirect errors, server errors on individual URLs). Google Search Console surfaces these issues primarily through the Pages report (formerly known as the Index Coverage report) and the Crawl Stats report. Understanding both is key to keeping your site healthy. Step 1: Access and Review Crawl Errors in Google Search Console Before you can fix anything, you need to know exactly what is broken. Here is how to find your crawl errors: Log in to Google Search Console. Select the property (website) you want to review. In the left sidebar, click Indexing and then Pages. Look at the section labeled “Why pages aren’t indexed”. This is where Google lists specific error types and the number of affected URLs. Click on any error type to see the list of affected URLs. Additionally, go to Settings > Crawl Stats to see a broader picture of how Googlebot is crawling your site, including response codes and host availability. Pro tip: Export the list of affected URLs for each error type. Having them in a spreadsheet makes it much easier to track your progress as you fix them. Step 2: Fix 404 (Not Found) Errors 404 errors are the most common crawl errors. They occur when Googlebot requests a URL that does not exist on your server. Common Causes of 404 Errors A page was deleted without setting up a redirect. A URL was changed (new slug or permalink structure) without a redirect from the old URL. External sites or internal pages link to a URL with a typo. A product or article was removed from the site. How to Fix Them Determine if the page should still exist. If it was deleted intentionally and has no replacement, a 404 or 410 (Gone) response is actually the correct behavior. Google will eventually drop it from the index. If the content moved to a new URL, set up a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one. This passes link equity and sends visitors to the right place. If the page was removed but a closely related page exists, redirect the old URL to that related page using a 301 redirect. Fix internal links. Search your site for any links pointing to the broken URL and update them to the correct destination. Contact external sites (if practical). If high-authority sites link to a broken URL, consider reaching out and asking them to update the link. How to Set Up a 301 Redirect The method depends on your platform: Platform Method WordPress Use a plugin like Redirection or Yoast SEO Premium Apache Server Add a rule in your .htaccess file Nginx Server Add a rewrite rule in your server configuration Shopify / Wix / Squarespace Use the built-in URL redirect feature in settings Step 3: Fix Soft 404 Errors A soft 404 happens when a page returns a 200 OK HTTP status code but the content of the page looks like an error page to Google. In other words, the server says “everything is fine” but the page is essentially empty or displays a “page not found” message. How to Fix Them If the page truly does not exist, make your server return a proper 404 or 410 HTTP status code instead of 200. If the page exists but has thin content, add meaningful, unique content to the page so Google no longer considers it empty. Check your CMS settings. Some content management systems serve custom 404 pages with a 200 status code. Verify that your custom error page actually sends the correct 404 header. Step 4: Fix Server Errors (5xx) Server errors (HTTP 500, 502, 503, etc.) mean that Googlebot reached your server, but the server failed to deliver the page. These are serious because they can affect your entire site if they happen frequently. Common Causes Your server is overloaded or running out of resources. A misconfigured server-side script or plugin is crashing. Your hosting provider is experiencing downtime. Database connection failures. Timeout errors due to slow page generation. How to Fix Them Check your server logs. Look at the error logs on your hosting account or server. The logs will tell you exactly which script or process is failing and why. Test the affected URLs yourself. Try loading them in a browser. If they work for you, the error may be intermittent. Use the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console to see exactly what Googlebot encountered. Review recent changes. Did you recently update a plugin, theme, or server configuration? Roll back changes if errors started after an update. Upgrade your hosting if needed. If traffic spikes cause 503 errors, your server may not have enough resources. Consider upgrading to a more powerful hosting plan or adding caching (e.g., Cloudflare,