How to find the source of my 404s

'404 - Page Not found'

This is a common error that we have all come across. We see this on our browser screen when the page we are trying to visit does not exist on the server.

for the technically inclined, it is the status code returned by the HTTP server when the page requested does not exist on the server.

On the web analytics group, Sue had a question: She is tracking this website and sees that large number of 404s come from the most visited page on her website.

Here is my proposed solution in Omniture Discover
Follow the below logic. It should be same in any WA tool

Let us call the "most popular page that is redirecting to the 404s" as X
and the 404 page as Y

1. Create a segment for all the folks who visited X and Y
2. For this segment look at the traffic source split

E.g: In Discover
* create a segment by dragging the visit container to RHS
* Click on edit
* add the 2 pages X and Y
* save

Then go to the traffic source report and pull the segment as a column and choose the date range.

You should be good!!

Thanks
Kiran



>
> --- On Wed, 4/29/09, Sue wrote:
>
> From: Sue
> Subject: [webanalytics] probably a very dumb ? but I need help finding source of 404
> To: webanalytics@ yahoogroups. com
> Date: Wednesday, April 29, 2009, 9:00 AM
>
> Community, please help me...
> I use Google Analytics and Webtrends version 8.0. WebTrends looks at my log files.
>
> I have read this article: http://googlewebmas tercentral. blogspot. com/2008/ 10/webmaster- tools-shows- crawl-error. html but it is no help to me. Google analytics shows no errors.
>
> but my page that 404's are redirected to is my number one visited page on my site. Where are these people coming from? Can I get this info from WebTrends?
>
> I have been so frustrated, I have actually clicked every link I can find on my web site to try to find the culprit.
>
> HELP!
> Thanks!
> Sue
>