Auto Redirect 404 to Custom URL – 404 Redirect & Error Log

Auto Redirect 404 to Custom URL is a fast, lightweight 404 redirect plugin that automatically sends every 404 “Page Not Found” error to a custom URL or your homepage — and now logs every broken link so you can see exactly which pages are missing.

Instead of losing a visitor to an error page, the plugin redirects them to a page that works. Instead of guessing which URLs are broken, the built-in 404 error log shows you every missing URL, how many times it was hit, and where the visitor came from.

If you are trying to clear “Not found (404)” errors out of Google Search Console, fix broken links after a site migration, or simply stop losing traffic to dead URLs, this plugin does it in about thirty seconds of setup.

Key Features

• Redirect 404 to Homepage or Any URL – send all 404 errors to your homepage, a landing page, a category, or an external site
• 404 Error Log – every broken URL recorded with a hit counter, referrer, and first/last seen timestamps
• SEO-Friendly 301 Redirects – permanent redirects that pass link equity, with a 302 temporary option when you need it
• Fix Google Search Console 404 Errors – resolve “Not found (404)” and soft 404 reports with proper redirects
• One-Click Enable / Disable – toggle redirects and logging independently, without deactivating the plugin
• Quick Page Select – pick any published page from a dropdown instead of typing a URL
• CSV Export – download your full 404 log for analysis in Excel or Google Sheets
• Top 404 Errors Widget – your five worst broken links, right on the settings screen
• Privacy-Friendly Logging – no IP addresses, no user agents, no personal data stored
• Self-Limiting Log Table – hard-capped at 1,000 rows, so a bot scan can never bloat your database
• Smart Exclusions – feeds, sitemaps, robots.txt, REST API and cron requests keep their real 404 status
• Skip Files & System Paths – missing images, scripts, fonts and documents keep a real 404 instead of being redirected
• Custom Exclusion Patterns – your own wildcard rules for URLs that should stay a genuine 404
• Redirect Loop Protection – checks the destination really exists before sending anyone to it
• Lightweight & Fast – no bloat, no third-party services, and zero work on pages that are not 404s
• Works With Any Theme – runs independently of your theme and page builder

The 404 Error Log

Turn on 404 Logging from the settings screen and the plugin starts recording every broken URL on your site.

Each unique URL is stored once with a hit counter, so a crawler hitting the same missing page ten thousand times creates a single row — not ten thousand. The log is capped at 1,000 entries and trims the least recently seen URLs automatically, so it can never grow out of control.

From the 404 Logs tab you can:

• Sort by hit count to find your most damaging broken links first
• Search the log by URL or referrer
• See where each broken link was clicked from
• Delete individual entries, bulk delete, or clear the whole log
• Export everything to CSV

Logging stores the requested path, the referring URL, a hit count and timestamps. No IP addresses and no user agents are recorded, so there is nothing personally identifying in the log.

Exclusions & Safety

Three controls on the settings screen decide exactly which 404s the plugin touches. On a new install they are switched on for you. If you are updating from an earlier version they start switched off, so your site keeps behaving exactly as it did until you choose to enable them.

Redirect Loop Protection verifies that your redirect destination actually exists before sending visitors to it. If the destination is itself missing, the plugin steps aside and shows the normal 404 page rather than bouncing the visitor back and forth until the browser gives up.

The check itself runs on a scheduled background task and whenever you save settings, never during a visitor’s request, so it can never add a single millisecond to a page load. A destination that has not been checked, or cannot be checked because your host blocks internal requests, is simply treated as fine and your redirects carry on working exactly as before.

Skip Files & System Paths keeps a real 404 for missing images, scripts, stylesheets, fonts, documents and archives, and for system paths such as /wp-json/, /wp-content/, feeds, sitemaps and robots.txt. Redirecting a missing image or script to an HTML page confuses browsers and crawlers, so this is switched on for new installs and recommended for everyone else.

Exclusion Patterns lets you list your own URL patterns, one per line, that should always keep a genuine 404:

/private/*
/downloads/*.zip
*/preview
/campaign-?

Use * to match any part of a path and ? to match a single character. Matching is against the path only, ignoring the domain and query string, and is not case sensitive. Excluded URLs are neither redirected nor logged.

Why Fix 404 Errors?

Unhandled 404 errors quietly cost you:

• Traffic – visitors who hit an error page usually leave and do not come back
• SEO rankings – crawl budget is wasted on dead URLs, and inbound link equity is lost
• Conversions – a potential customer who lands on an error page is a lost sale
• Credibility – broken pages make a site look abandoned

A 301 redirect solves all four at once, and the 404 log tells you which URLs are worth a dedicated redirect.

Perfect For

• Fixing 404 errors after a site migration or redesign
• Recovering traffic from deleted posts, pages, and products
• Cleaning up “Not found (404)” reports in Google Search Console
• Finding broken links pointing at your site from elsewhere
• Catching mistyped URLs in your own navigation and content
• SEO audits and ongoing link maintenance

For Developers

Three filters let you customise behaviour without touching plugin files:

// Skip the redirect for specific URLs.
add_filter( 'r404c_should_redirect', function ( $should, $current_url, $target ) {
    if ( false !== strpos( $current_url, '/keep-404/' ) ) {
        return false;
    }
    return $should;
}, 10, 3 );

// Skip logging for specific URLs.
add_filter( 'r404c_should_log', function ( $should, $url ) {
    return false === strpos( $url, '/wp-content/' ) ? $should : false;
}, 10, 2 );

// Exclude a request from both redirecting and logging.
add_filter( 'r404c_exclude_request', function ( $excluded ) {
    return $excluded;
} );

Support the Developer

If this plugin saved you time, please consider buying me a coffee or leaving a review. Both help enormously.

Privacy

This plugin does not send any data to any external service.

The only network request it ever makes is Redirect Loop Protection issuing a HEAD request to your own site, to confirm the redirect destination exists before visitors are sent there. It runs on a scheduled background task, no data leaves your server, and the check can be switched off on the settings screen.

When 404 logging is enabled, the plugin stores the following in a table in your own database:

• The requested URL path that returned a 404
• The referring URL, if the browser supplied one
• A hit counter and the first/last seen timestamps

No IP addresses, no user agent strings, and no user account information are recorded. The log is capped at 1,000 rows and older entries are removed automatically. Logging is off by default and can be switched off at any time, and deleting the plugin removes the table entirely.

Support

Need help? Have suggestions?

• Support Forum
• Buy Me a Coffee – Support development

Automatic Installation

1. Log in to your WordPress admin dashboard
2. Navigate to Plugins > Add New
3. Search for “Auto Redirect 404 to Custom URL”
4. Click Install Now and then Activate
5. Go to Settings > Auto 404 Redirects to configure

Manual Installation

1. Download the plugin ZIP file
2. Upload the auto-redirect-404s folder to /wp-content/plugins/
3. Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress
4. Navigate to Settings > Auto 404 Redirects to configure your redirect URL

Configuration

1. After activation, go to Settings > Auto 404 Redirects
2. Enter your custom redirect URL, or pick a page from the Quick Select dropdown
3. Choose 301 (permanent) for SEO, or 302 (temporary) if the change is short-term
4. Switch on 404 Logging if you want to record broken links
5. Optionally add Exclusion Patterns for URLs that should stay a real 404
6. Click Save Settings
7. Test by visiting a non-existent page on your site

1. 

   The settings screen

2. 

   The 404 Logs screen

1.2.0

404 Error Logging

• New: optional 404 logging with a dedicated 404 Logs tab on the settings screen
• New: each unique URL is stored once with a hit counter, referrer, and first/last seen timestamps
• New: sort, search, paginate, delete individual entries, bulk delete, and clear the whole log
• New: CSV export of the full log
• New: “Top 404 Errors” widget on the settings sidebar showing your five worst broken links
• Privacy: no IP addresses and no user agents are recorded
• Safety: the log table is hard-capped at 1,000 rows and trims itself, so a bot scan cannot bloat your database

Exclusions & Safety

• New: Redirect Loop Protection verifies the destination exists before redirecting, and shows the normal 404 if it does not. The check runs on an hourly background task and on settings save, never during a visitor’s request, so it cannot slow the site down
• New: Skip Files & System Paths keeps a real 404 for missing images, scripts, stylesheets, fonts, documents, archives and system paths
• New: Exclusion Patterns for your own wildcard rules for URLs that should stay a genuine 404, never redirected or logged
• New: toggle to show or hide the “Top 404 Errors” sidebar widget
• Note: on an existing install the two behaviour-changing options above start switched off, so nothing changes until you enable them. New installs get them on

Fixes and hardening

• Fixed: the activation routine never actually ran, so default options were never written. Upgrades are now handled on admin load, which is what reaches sites updated through the WordPress updater
• Fixed: removed a “same as your current site URL” confirmation dialog that appeared on every save. It compared hostnames only, so pointing 404s at your own homepage, the recommended setup, always triggered it
• Fixed: redirect loops caused by http/https, trailing-slash and query-string differences between the request and the destination
• Fixed: feeds, sitemaps, robots.txt, REST API and cron requests are no longer redirected and keep their real 404 status
• Fixed: activation and deactivation no longer call wp_cache_flush(), which wiped the entire site object cache for every other plugin
• Security: the redirect URL is now validated against an http/https allowlist, rejecting javascript:, data: and other unsafe schemes
• Security: CSV export escapes formula characters to prevent spreadsheet formula injection
• Security: all log queries use prepared statements, with sorting constrained to a fixed allowlist
• New: uninstall.php removes all options and the log table, with multisite support
• New: three filters for developers — r404c_should_redirect, r404c_should_log and r404c_exclude_request
• Requirement: WordPress 5.0 or newer (was 4.7)
• Requirement: PHP 7.4 or newer (was 7.0)

1.0.1

• Compatibility updates

1.0.0

• First stable release. Install to start redirecting 404 errors automatically!