Not found (404)
The "Not found (404)" status in Google Search Console means Googlebot tried to fetch a URL and your server returned an HTTP 404 Not Found response. 404s are a normal part of the web - when a page is genuinely gone, returning a 404 is the right thing to do. The problem is not 404s themselves, it is 404s on URLs that shouldn't be 404ing: sitemap entries, internally linked URLs, and pages that should exist but don't due to a bug.
What this GSC status means
Googlebot sent an HTTP request for the URL and received a 404 response (or 410 Gone - Google groups them together). Google removes the URL from the index after a 404 persists across a few recrawls. The URL itself can continue to be recrawled for months, especially if it has external links, but it will not appear in search results. Google groups 404 detection sources: sometimes Google learned of the URL from a link on your site, a backlink, or an old sitemap entry.
Common causes
- Pages intentionally deleted (old products, expired promotions, removed blog posts) - correct behavior.
- URLs in your sitemap that point to pages that no longer exist - your sitemap was not regenerated.
- Internal links (in menus, footers, sidebars) pointing to URLs that changed or were removed.
- Broken backlinks from external sites pointing to URLs you never published.
- CMS or deployment bugs that accidentally removed pages or changed URL structure.
- Mistyped URLs from old blog posts, emails, or marketing campaigns.
- Localization bugs serving 404 for pages that exist in a different locale.
How it affects indexing
Genuine 404s are harmless - Google will drop them from the index and stop prioritizing them over time. But 404s cost when the URL still has incoming signals: valuable backlinks die, internal link equity leaks away, and URLs kept in sitemaps waste crawl budget. Unexpected 404s on pages you still want indexed represent direct traffic loss.
How to diagnose
In GSC, click "Not found (404)" to see the URL list and export it. For each URL, ask: should this page exist? Is the URL in your sitemap? Does it have backlinks (check Ahrefs, Semrush, or GSC Links report)? Is it still linked from anywhere on your site (Screaming Frog or a crawler will find internal linkers)? Test the URL with curl -I URL to confirm the status code is actually 404.
How to fix
1. Remove all 404 URLs from your sitemap.xml and regenerate it. 2. For URLs that should exist: restore the page or fix the bug causing the 404. Verify with curl that it returns 200. 3. For URLs with meaningful replacements: 301 redirect to the closest equivalent page (same intent, same topic). 4. For permanently removed pages with no equivalent: return 410 Gone instead of 404 - it signals "deliberately gone". 5. Update internal links - replace links to 404 URLs with links to live equivalents or remove them entirely. 6. Reach out for broken backlinks worth recovering - ask external sites to update their links to your live URL. 7. Leave genuine 404s alone - do not redirect every 404 to the homepage (creates soft 404 patterns). 8. Resubmit the sitemap in Search Console so Google re-reads the updated URL list.