Redirects and 404s

The 404 log

Every time someone lands on a page that doesn’t exist, it’s recorded here with the requested URL, how many times it’s been hit, and where the visitor came from.

Sort by hit count. A URL requested once is probably a typo or a bot; one requested two hundred times is a link somewhere real that’s pointing at nothing.

Creating a redirect

1. Find the 404 in the log and click Create redirect.
2. Enter the destination — the plugin autocompletes from your existing pages.
3. Pick the type, then save. It takes effect immediately.

You can also add redirects manually for URLs that haven’t been hit yet — useful when you’re about to change a slug and want the old one covered in advance.

Redirect types

• 301 Permanent — the default and what you want almost always. Tells search engines the move is final and passes ranking signals to the new URL.
• 302 Temporary — for genuinely temporary moves, like a page down for maintenance. Doesn’t pass ranking signals.
• 410 Gone — for content deliberately removed with no replacement. Cleaner than a 404 because it tells crawlers to stop asking.

If you’re unsure, use 301. Guessing wrong with a 302 on a permanent move means the old URL keeps the ranking and the new one never earns it.

Broken internal links

This is separate from the 404 log and comes from your scan. Where a 404 records what visitors hit, the broken-links check finds links in your own content pointing at pages that no longer exist — whether or not anyone has clicked them yet.

Those are fixable directly: the plugin rewrites the link in your content rather than adding a redirect, which is the cleaner fix when you control both ends.

The attack-pattern filter

A lot of 404 traffic isn’t real visitors. Bots probe for known vulnerable paths — old plugin files, config backups, admin panels that don’t exist here.

The security check spots these patterns and can block the repeat offenders, which keeps your 404 log readable and takes load off the server. It’s one of the 46 checks and appears under Security.

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