What are Soft 404 and How to fix Soft 404 Error?

Finding and fixing soft 404 problems is one of the processes in technical SEO. Soft 404 errors can be perplexing because it’s often unclear what’s wrong, making troubleshooting and correcting a time-consuming procedure.

You’ll discover everything you need to know about soft 404 errors in this article, including what they are, where to look for them, and how to resolve them.

What is a Soft 404 Error?

When a user requests a page that can’t be found or is invalid, the server instead of giving the correct HTTP error code (404 or 410 not found), returns the HTTP response code 200 OK (success).

In simple terms, this implies that instead of returning the correct error code to search engines so that they disregard the page, your server gives a 200 OK code, which convinces them that the page is valid.

As a result, search engines continue to index and list these pages in search results.

Soft 404 Errors usually happen when:

There are pages on your site that have no or very little content. As a result, Google believes the website should return a 404/410 code rather than a 200 OK code. Empty tag pages with no content are an example of this.

Crawling is experiencing a temporary problem. When Google tries to crawl the website, some of the page resources (CSS, JS) are unable to load, resulting in the page displaying with no content, leading Google to believe it should be a 404.

While there is no problem with the page, Google incorrectly labels it as’seems to be a 404.’

What is Important to Fix soft 404 Errors?

It is important to find and fix soft 404 errors because:

1. It’s a Bad Practice

The right HTTP status code should be returned by a page. It should return a 404/410 (not found) or a 301 (moved) instead of a 200 in the case of missing, invalid, or non-existent pages (success code).

2. It’s a Bad User Experience

You don’t want users to click a link from a search engine result and end up on a page on your website with no or little information and no value to them.

3. Your crawl budget is wasted

Instead of crawling and indexing your vital sites, search engines spend time scanning and indexing soft 404 pages.

4. If the page has moved

If you modify a page’s URL (for example, updating the slug for a blog post), the page should return a 301 (permanent redirect) and link people to the new URL.

If the page has relocated because you’ve changed outdated content, redirect the URL to another page on your site that contains more current or relevant information.

5. If the page is available but you don’t want it to appear in Google search

There may be pages on your site that are receiving soft 404 errors that you’d rather not have in Google’s search. For example, you might have tag, category, or search results pages on your Website that keep getting soft 404s and you’re not getting much SEO for these pages anyway.

How to find Soft 404 Errors?

The Google Search Console, namely the Coverage Report and the URL Inspection tool, is the most reliable approach to identify 404 problems (both 404 not found and soft 404 errors).

The first step is to register your website with Google, if you haven’t already. This will get you access to a number of SEO-enhancing options.

Coverage Report

• Go to the Google Search Console and sign in.
• Then, under INDEX, click COVERAGE to get the COVERAGE REPORT.

Make sure the ERROR tab is chosen and search for the things listed below:

• Submitted URL Seems to Be a Soft 404
• Soft 404
• Not Found (404)

To learn more about the pages that are affected, click on the error description.

URL Inspection Tool

The URL Inspection tool is another approach to find the HTTP status response code.

In the URL Inspection tool, type a URL and press Enter.

VIEW CRAWLED PAGE and then MORE INFO are the options.

The HTTP Response will appear, as shown in the screenshot above.

How to Fix Soft 404 Error

Check that the page is indeed a soft 404 or a false alarm

It’s possible that Google Search Console has mistakenly marked a page as a soft 404, therefore the first step is to double-check.

• To see a list of affected pages, go to the Coverage Report and click “Submitted URL looks to be a soft 404”.
• Click the “Open in a new tab” button when your mouse is over a URL.

Click the VALIDATE FIX button if it’s a valid page on your site that you wish to see in the search results.

This action will make Google crawl the page again and alter the status code. This procedure may take a few days, and you will be advised of the outcome through email.

Inspect the page and Test Live URL

Moving the mouse over a URL and selecting INSPECT URL is another option. This will provide you with further information about the page as well as the ability to REQUEST INDEXING.

Before you do that, you may force Google to update the report by clicking the TEST LIVE URL button.

In many circumstances, the page will be fine and no additional action is required.

404 Errors and SEO

Is it true that 404 errors have an impact on your SEO and ranking potential? It is dependent on the circumstances.

There are legitimate situations in which 404 pages are normal and anticipated. When a product is no longer available, for example, you can show the user a 404 page to inform them that the product is no longer accessible.

Another scenario is when you wish to delete a page entirely from the search results. You tell search engines that the page has been permanently erased by issuing a 404-status code.

Soft 404 errors are difficult since there are circumstances where the page is valid but Google believes it isn’t, as well as cases where the page isn’t valid yet your server responds 200 OK.

In such cases, it is preferable to examine and correct the faults.

To maximise your crawl budget, avoid confounding search engines, and provide a positive user experience, you should avoid having 404 errors on your site as a general rule.

What is the difference between 404 Not Found and soft 404 errors?

The difference between 404 not found and soft 404 errors is that 404 not found errors occur when a page is not found and an HTTP status code of 404 or 410 is returned (which correctly corresponds to not found).

The page is not found in the case of a soft 404 error, however rather of giving the HTTP status code 404, the page returns the 200-success code, which is misleading.

In plain terms, the page response code for both circumstances should have been 404, however this isn’t the case with soft 404 errors.

Another significant distinction is that search engines do not index 404 pages and they will not appear in search results, however soft 404 pages are indexed by search engines and may appear in search results.