How do I fix crawl errors in Google Search Console?
Technical SEO
Crawl errors (404, 5xx, soft‑404, blocked resources) indicate Googlebot couldn’t retrieve or properly evaluate a URL. Fixing them improves discoverability and protects crawl budget.
How to triage:
1) Open GSC’s Page Indexing report; group by error type (e.g., “Not found,” “Soft 404,” “Alternate page with proper canonical”).
2) For true 404s of valuable pages, restore content or 301 to the closest relevant URL; for intentionally removed content, return 410 or leave 404 and remove internal links.
3) Resolve soft‑404s by improving thin pages (add substantive content) or redirecting them.
4) Eliminate redirect chains/loops; ensure a single 301 hop.
5) Fix 5xx by stabilizing hosting, optimizing queries, adding caching/CDN.
6) Unblock essential CSS/JS in robots.txt so Google can render the page correctly.
7) Revalidate with URL Inspection and monitor server logs to confirm 200 OK responses.
Example: Category filters generating empty pages often trigger soft‑404—block thin combinations or canonicalize to the main category.
Further reading:
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/overview-google-indexing
https://ahrefs.com/blog/google-search-console-errors/