AI chatbots are breaking the web—and forcing a 404 makeover

More than half of Americans use chatbots, which are increasingly replacing search engines as a way to navigate the web and find answers. However, AI models sometimes provide incorrect information, including website URLs, which can lead to users landing on 404 error pages. According to an analysis, ChatGPT included the wrong URL in roughly one out of every 33 links. Website hosts are adapting to this issue by designing new 404 error pages that explain what went wrong and offer contextual links. Some are even creating on-the-fly content using AI tools to improve the user experience. Jack Arturo, who runs WP Fusion, has noticed a significant increase in traffic from ChatGPT, with about three out of every 100 links being broken. To address this, Arturo built an AI-powered system that generates content for nonexistent pages, which took only an hour to set up. SEO experts agree that website owners need to adapt to AI chatbots, which have a tendency to hallucinate URLs that don't exist. They suggest rethinking 404 pages to guide users toward the content they were originally seeking. The best way to provide an optimal user experience on 404 pages is to provide messaging about the content not being found and include links to important pages on the site. Until AI companies can fix the issue, website owners will have to adapt and work around it.