Track 404s

Automatically track every 404 error on your site. See which URLs visitors are trying to access, where they’re coming from, and how often each error occurs—then fix the broken links or set up redirects.

Use Cases#

• Discover broken internal links that hurt user experience
• Find external sites linking to old or incorrect URLs
• Identify popular missing content that should be restored or redirected
• Monitor for suspicious scanning activity or attack attempts
• Clean up 404s to improve SEO and crawl efficiency

Where to Find It#

Navigate to Switchboard → Track 404s to view your 404 log with full statistics, filtering, and export options.

How It Works#

1. When a visitor hits a 404 page, Switchboard logs the URL
2. Repeat visits to the same URL increment the hit counter
3. Referrer information shows where visitors came from
4. View logs in the admin panel and take action

Dashboard Statistics#

The Track 404s dashboard shows at a glance:

• Total Hits: Combined 404 errors logged
• Unique URLs: Number of distinct 404 URLs
• New Today: 404s first seen in the past 24 hours
• Top 404s: Most frequently hit missing pages
• Recent 404s: Latest logged errors

What Gets Tracked#

For each 404 error, the module records:

Settings#

Configure tracking behavior in the module settings:

Ignore Patterns#

By default, common non-actionable 404s are ignored:

• .env, .git, wp-config (security scans)
• favicon.ico, apple-touch-icon (browser requests)
• xmlrpc, wp-login.php (bot attack attempts)
• phpmyadmin, mysql, adminer (exploit scans)

Add your own patterns as a comma-separated list. Any URL containing a pattern will be ignored.

Example ignore patterns:

/test/,/staging/,/backup/,.map,/api/internal/

Filtering Bots#

When “Exclude Bots & Crawlers” is enabled, the module filters out:

• Googlebot, Bingbot, and other search engine crawlers
• Social media crawlers (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn)
• SEO tools (Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz)
• Monitoring services
• Common scraping libraries (Python requests, curl, wget)

This keeps your logs focused on real visitor issues rather than automated noise.

Taking Action on 404s#

When you identify a 404 that needs fixing, you have options:

Create a Redirect#

Pair this module with Redirects Manager to:

1. Note the 404 URL
2. Go to Switchboard → Redirects
3. Create a redirect from the 404 URL to the correct destination
4. The 404 will no longer occur for that URL

Fix the Link#

If the referrer shows an internal page:

1. Note which page contains the broken link
2. Edit that page and fix the incorrect URL
3. The 404 stops occurring once the link is corrected

Restore Content#

If many people are looking for deleted content:

1. Consider restoring the page from backup
2. Or create new content at that URL
3. Or redirect to the closest alternative

Exporting Data#

Click the export button to download your 404 log as a CSV file containing:

• URL
• Hit Count
• First Seen
• Last Seen
• Referrer

Use this for:

• Sharing with developers or SEO consultants
• Analyzing patterns in spreadsheets
• Creating bulk redirect lists

Data Retention#

To prevent database bloat, configure auto-cleanup:

• 30 days (default): Good balance of history and storage
• 7 days: Minimal storage, recent data only
• 90 days: More history for trend analysis
• 0 (disabled): Keep logs forever (not recommended)

Cleanup runs automatically once per day.

Rate Limiting#

To prevent a single visitor or bot from flooding your logs:

• Same IP + URL combination has a 60-second cooldown
• Prevents artificial inflation of hit counts
• Ensures accurate statistics for real traffic patterns

FAQ#