How to Find 404 Pages in Google Analytics 4

A potential customer finds a link to your site, clicks with anticipation, and lands on a dead end: "404 Page Not Found." It's one of the most jarring experiences on the web, breaking user trust and hurting your SEO. This guide will show you exactly how to hunt down these problematic 404 error pages directly within Google Analytics 4, so you can fix them and keep your user journeys smooth.

Why Bother Searching for 404 Errors?

Tracking down 404 "not found" errors isn't just a technical housekeeping task - it has a real impact on your business. When you leave these broken links unaddressed, you're looking at several consequences:

• Poor User Experience: Hitting a 404 page is frustrating. It immediately tells a visitor that your website is poorly maintained or broken. Most users won't try to find what they were looking for, they'll simply leave and go to a competitor.
• Wasted SEO Value: If other websites link to a page on your site that is now a 404, you lose all the SEO authority (or "link juice") from that backlink. It's like having a valuable recommendation pointing to an empty lot. Fixing this by redirecting the broken URL recovers that value.
• Lost Conversions and Revenue: What if that broken link was for a product page, a contact form, or a high-value blog post? Every visitor who hits that 404 is a potential lead or sale that you've lost, simply because of a technical glitch.

Fortunately, GA4 has all the data we need to find and diagnose these errors. You just need to know where to create the right report.

The Best Way: Create a 404 Error Report in GA4 Explorations

The most flexible and powerful way to track 404s is by building a custom report in the "Explore" section. While it sounds technical, it’s a straightforward process that gives you a reusable and detailed breakdown of your site's broken links.

First, it's important to understand how GA4 identifies these pages. By default, GA4 doesn't have a "404 error count" metric. Instead, it tracks the titles of the pages users view. Most websites' 404 pages have a specific title, like "Page not found," "404 Error," or "Not Found." We'll use this Page title dimension as our key to unlocking the data.

Pro-Tip: Visit a non-existent URL on your own website (e.g., yoursite.com/brokenlink) and take note of the exact text in the page title. You'll need it for the filter later.

Step-by-Step Guide to Building the Exploration Report

1. Head to the Explore Section

In the left-hand navigation menu of your Google Analytics 4 property, click on Explore. Then, select Blank report to start building a new exploration from scratch.

2. Name Your Report

At the top left, give your exploration a memorable name, like "404 Error Tracker" or "Broken Pages Report." This makes it easy to find later.

3. Add Your Dimensions

Dimensions are the "what" in your report - the categorical attributes of your data. In the "Variables" column on the left, click the plus sign (+) next to the Dimensions header.

Search for and import the following three dimensions:

• Page title: This is what we'll use to identify the 404 page itself.
• Page path and screen class: This shows the actual broken URL slug that the user tried to visit.
• Page referrer: This is incredibly useful as it shows the previous page the user was on, helping you find where the broken link is located.

4. Add Your Metrics

Metrics are the numbers - the "how many." In the same "Variables" column, click the plus sign (+) next to the Metrics header.

Search for and import this metric:

• Views: This metric gives a simple count of how many times a page was viewed. You could also use "Sessions," but Views is more direct for this purpose.

5. Build the Report Canvas

Now, drag and drop the dimensions and metrics from the "Variables" column into the "Tab Settings" column.

• Drag Page path and screen class to the Rows section.
• Drag Page referrer right under "Page path and screen class" in the Rows section.
• Drag Views to the Values section.

6. Apply the Critical Filter

At this point, you have a report of all pages on your site. The final step is to filter this list to show only traffic to your "Page Not Found" page. In the "Tab Settings" column, head to the bottom where it says Filters.

1. Click "Drop or select dimension or metric."
2. Choose Page title.
3. For the condition, select contains.
4. In the "Enter expression" box, type the page title of your 404 page (e.g., "Page not found"). Be sure to match the text you found earlier exactly.
5. Click Apply.

The report table will instantly update, and you should now see a list of broken URLs that users tried to access, sorted by the number of views!

Interpreting Your 404 Report

You now have a clean, prioritized list.

• The Page path column shows you the URLs that don't exist.
• The Views column shows you how many times people have landed on that error, helping you prioritize the most problematic links first.
• You can click the little arrow next to a broken page path to expand it and see the Page referrer, revealing exactly where your visitors are coming from. If the referrer is a page on your own site, it's an internal link you need to fix. If it's another domain, it's a valuable backlink you should redirect.

Quick Check: Filtering the Standard "Pages and Screens" Report

If you don't need the detailed drill-down of an Exploration and just want a fast check, you can use the standard reports. This method is less flexible but gets the job done for a quick overview.

1. Navigate to Reports > Engagement > Pages and screens.
2. The table will default to showing "Page title." At the top of the table in the filter box, type the title of your 404 page (e.g., "Page not found") and press Enter.
3. This will filter the list to show only activity on your error page.
4. To see the broken URLs, click the dropdown above the table that says "Page title" and change it to Page path and screen class.

This will give you a quick list of top broken URLs, but without the handy referrer information included, so it's less actionable for diagnosing where the link came from.

Next Steps: What to Do With Your List of 404s

Simply finding the 404s is not enough. The goal is to fix them. Here's a framework for taking action:

1. Prioritize Your Fixes

Look at the Views metric in your report. The broken URLs with the highest number of views should be your top priority, as they're affecting the most users.

2. Analyze the Source (Page Referrer)

• Internal Links: If the referrer is a page on your own website, the fix is easy. Go into your CMS (like WordPress, HubSpot, or Shopify) and edit the page containing the broken link. Update it with the correct URL.
• External Links: If the referrer is from another website, it means you have an external backlink pointing to a dead page. This is a huge opportunity! Don't let that SEO value go to waste. You should set up a 301 redirect.

3. Implement 301 Redirects

A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect that tells search engines and browsers, "This page has moved for good, and its new home is over here." It passes nearly all of the SEO authority from the old, broken URL to the new, live URL.

Redirect the broken URL to the most relevant live page on your website. For example, if yoursite.com/blue-shoes-collection is broken, you should redirect it to your main shoe category page, not just your homepage. Most modern website platforms and hosting providers have simple tools or plugins (like Redirection for WordPress) that let you set up 301 redirects without touching any code.

Final Thoughts

Finding 404 errors in Google Analytics 4 is a straightforward process once you know how to build the right report. By creating a custom exploration filtered by your "Page Not Found" title, you can get a clear, actionable list of broken links and see where users are coming from. Prioritizing what needs fixing is an essential routine for maintaining a healthy site for both users and search engines.

While setting this up in GA4 is great for one-off checks, you might find yourself manually checking this report every week. That repetitive cycle of logging in, finding your exploration, updating the date range, and exporting data is what keeps marketing and sales teams stuck on reporting work instead of strategy. We built Graphed to eliminate that friction. Instead of navigating menus and applying filters, you connect your Google Analytics account and just ask, "Show me my top 404 errors this month and their referrers." We instantly create a live, shareable dashboard that tracks this for you automatically, saving you from doing the manual work and letting you focus on fixing what's broken.