How to Fix Every HTTP Error
The HTTP Error Audit sweeps every URL the crawler can find and reports back the response code. 4xx errors (404 not found, 403 forbidden) waste crawl budget; 5xx errors (500 internal, 502 bad gateway, 504 timeout) signal server failures. Both hurt rankings if persistent. This index covers fixes for every status code.
By finding type
Findings by status code. Pick yours:
🔍 Fix 404 Not Found errors PLANNED
Page doesn't exist at that URL. Fix: redirect to closest match (301), restore the page, or accept it's gone. The bulk-find pattern, the migration-aftermath cleanup, the soft-404 trap where pages exist but return error-like content.
🚫 Fix 403 Forbidden errors PLANNED
Access blocked. Common causes: wrong file permissions (755/644), .htaccess rules, server-firewall rules, IP block. The Plesk/cPanel permission-fix workflow.
🔥 Fix 500 Internal Server errors PLANNED
Server crashed processing the request. Check error logs first — the actual error is in /var/log/nginx/error.log or your app's log. Plesk vs cPanel log locations. Common causes: PHP fatal error, database connection, OOM.
🌉 Fix 502 Bad Gateway errors PLANNED
Reverse proxy can't reach origin. Common: PHP-FPM crashed, Node app down, upstream timeout exceeded. The nginx/Apache proxy-buffer settings, FPM pool tuning, restart-on-failure patterns.
⏱️ Fix 504 Gateway Timeout errors PLANNED
Origin took too long to respond. Long-running database queries, external API timeouts, slow PHP. Tune fastcgi_read_timeout, optimise the slow code path, or offload to async.
🔗 Fix redirect chains and loops PLANNED
Multi-hop chains lose link equity at each hop. Loops 404 the user. Collapse to single 301, audit at edge AND origin, the Cloudflare-vs-origin precedence issue.
🔒 Fix SSL handshake failures PLANNED
Expired certificate, intermediate cert missing, hostname mismatch, weak cipher rejected by modern browsers. The SSL Labs test workflow, Let's Encrypt auto-renewal, the wildcard-cert gotchas.
🐌 Fix request timeout errors PLANNED
Page never responds. Different from 504 — this is the crawler giving up before any response. Optimise initial response time, fix DNS resolution issues, the keepalive settings.
By platform
Error sources by stack:
📰 Fix HTTP errors in WordPress PLANNED
wp-cron locks, plugin fatal errors, theme PHP errors, .htaccess corruption, the debug.log workflow for diagnosing 500s.
🟢 Fix HTTP errors in Plesk / cPanel PLANNED
Error log locations, the panel-reported errors vs actual nginx/Apache logs, fastcgi vs PHP-FPM pool restart, permission fixes via SSH or panel.
⚛️ Fix HTTP errors in Node.js / Next.js PLANNED
PM2 process crashes, the 502 cascade when the app dies, Vercel/Netlify edge timeouts, ISR build failures returning 500s on first hit.
What our HTTP Error Audit checks
The audit hits every URL in your crawl scope, records the status code and response time, follows redirects, and flags anything outside the 200-range. For the full reference, see the HTTP Error Guide.
🔴 Run the audit first
Persistent 4xx and 5xx errors hurt rankings — find them before Google does.
Run HTTP Error Audit →