If an internet user follows a broken or dead link, what error message do they typically find?

When an internet user encounters a broken or dead link, they typically receive a 404 error message. This message indicates that the server cannot find the requested resource. It is a standard HTTP response code that signifies that the client was able to communicate with the server, but the server could not find what was requested.

Web pages may become inaccessible for various reasons, such as being moved without updating the links, deleted by the website owner, or mistyped URLs. The 404 error effectively informs users that the content they are looking for does not exist at the specified path. In contrast, other error codes like 403, 500, and 502 indicate different issues, such as permission denied, server errors, or bad gateway responses, which do not specifically address the scenario of a dead link.