Technical SEO · Intermediate

Soft 404

A soft 404 is a page that tells visitors it doesn't exist, or has no real content, while returning a 200 OK status. Search engines treat it as missing and may drop it from the index.

By Thryv StudioUpdated

Level
Intermediate
Reported in
Search Console's Pages report
Common causes
Empty pages, "no results" pages, redirects to the home page

What is a soft 404?

The server says "OK" (200), but the page says "not found", or is essentially empty. Google detects these and reports them as soft 404s rather than indexing them.

Common causes:

  • Custom error pages that return 200.
  • Empty category or search results pages.
  • Deleted products redirected to the home page or an unrelated page.
  • Pages that load their content only through scripts that fail.

How to fix it

  1. Return a real 404 or 410 for pages that don't exist.
  2. Add useful content to thin pages you want indexed, or noindex them.
  3. Redirect removed pages only to relevant replacements.

Frequently asked questions

Are soft 404s a penalty?

No, but the pages won't rank, and the crawling they absorb is wasted.

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