Checks / Links, canonical and speed
Address variants of real pages return 404
A real page answers 200, but the same address with or without the trailing slash, or in another letter case, answers 404. Links written that way, and crawlers that normalise addresses, hit an error page.
url_variants_404 · Links, canonical and speed · Notice
What to change
Redirect each variant to the canonical address with a 301, or serve the same page on both.
How common it is
We have not measured how common this is on a sample of sites. Counts appear here when a study covers it.
About this check
| Check ID | url_variants_404 |
|---|---|
| Report section | Links, canonical and speed |
| Severity | Notice |
| How it is decided | Measured: read directly from the page or the server's response. |
| Added | Before 19 Oct 2026 (versions 1 and 2), or a site-wide check with no version date yet |
| Status | Measured in every report |
| Report gives the code | No, the fix is described in words |
Related checks
- URL is hard to read or share
- Broken internal links
- Canonical points to a broken or redirecting URL
- Redirect loop
- Canonical points to a noindex page
- Canonical points to another page
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