What is a NotFoundBot Auto-Redirect?

NotFoundBot uses advanced AI to try to determine the intent of a visitor when they land on a 404 error.  This includes looking at where the visitor came from, where they landed, and where other visitors that landed on this particular 404 eventually end up going.

When NotFoundBot analyzes all of these things and determines with high confidence what we believe the intent of the visitor was, we perform an auto-redirect of the visitor from the 404 error to the page we believe they intended to land on.  When this happens the visitor doesn’t even know that a 404 error was encountered.  If the confidence threshold isn’t met to do an auto-redirect, then an assisted redirect is performed.

The most simplistic example of an auto-redirect would be a simple typo in a url.

In this example we see a simple typo.  However, looking at the URL and comparing it against the sitemap we determine with high confidence where the visitor intended to go.  In this case, the visitor is auto-redirected without seeing a 404 error on their screen.

Why is this important?

74% of e-commerce visitors to a website that land on a 404 error page give up, leave, and never come back to the site.  It’s a lost sale.

With auto redirection a large portion of those lost sales can be recouped.