{"id":830644,"date":"2018-10-22T17:35:40","date_gmt":"2018-10-22T15:35:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-rocket.me\/?p=830644"},"modified":"2024-03-22T15:51:09","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T14:51:09","slug":"google-soft-404-errors-fix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-rocket.me\/blog\/google-soft-404-errors-fix\/","title":{"rendered":"What Are Google Soft 404 Errors (and How to Fix Them)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Soft 404s are fairly common errors that Google sometimes throws up for web pages, particularly for larger sites. They\u2019re also a strange error because soft 404s are a hybrid of 404 and normal pages, and what exactly is causing this error for a particular page might not always be clear.<\/span><\/p>

So in this post, I want to help clear up some of the confusion around why soft 404 errors happen, how they\u2019re different from regular 404 errors, and how you can fix the SEO issues that cause them.<\/span><\/p>

What is a Soft 404 Error?<\/span><\/h2>

According to Google<\/span><\/a>: <\/span><\/p>

\u201cA soft 404 means that a URL on your site returns a page telling the user that the page does not exist and also a 200-level (success) code to the browser.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>

Basically, you\u2019ve got a page on your site telling visitors that it no longer exists, but at the same time, it\u2019s telling search engines that it <\/span>does<\/span><\/i> exist.<\/span><\/p>

Confusing, right?<\/span><\/p>

In some cases, it might be a page on your site that doesn\u2019t have much, if any, content. For example, WordPress automatically generates a new URL when you create a new tag for your site. If you\u2019ve created a tag but haven\u2019t yet published any posts using the tag, you\u2019ll have an empty page on your site\u2014and potentially a soft 404 on your hands.<\/span><\/p>

So what\u2019s really happening there? Well, these thin pages are super confusing for <\/span>Googlebot<\/span><\/a>. When it\u2019s crawling your site and comes across a page that the server says exists but the content suggests otherwise, it thinks, \u201cwell, this page doesn\u2019t offer any value to users so it\u2019s not worth indexing\u201d and gives it a soft 404 label.<\/span><\/p>

It\u2019s also possible to get a soft 404 when a page doesn\u2019t exist and when a user lands on it after clicking through in search results, they\u2019re redirect to a page that isn\u2019t relevant to the search context. For example, the user lands on a page and is automatically redirected to the home page.<\/span><\/p>

Do Soft 404 Errors Really Matter?<\/span><\/h2>

When a web page returns a soft 404 error, it won\u2019t appear in Google search. Basically, Google de-indexes pages that return a soft 404 error, which in turn can impact your SEO.<\/span><\/p>

Let\u2019s take a look at an example:<\/span><\/p>

Let\u2019s say you run an online store selling chairs and you\u2019re having issues with one URL in particular: <\/span>https:\/\/chairsgalorestore.com\/products\/sale\/blue-chair<\/span><\/p>

While your server might load the URL without issue, returning a 200 (OK) status code because there\u2019s a real page at that URL, the <\/span>content<\/span><\/i> on the page could be telling visitors: \u201cSorry, there are no products matching your search.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\"soft<\/a><\/figure><\/div>

Basically, the page is displaying search results for a product that doesn\u2019t exist because it\u2019s no longer for sale or has sold out.<\/span><\/p>

Ecommerce sites often contain dynamically generated pages and content that can throw up soft 404 errors when product lines sell out or are no longer available. Images: Unsplash<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>

This isn\u2019t at all helpful for site visitors. After all, when they click through to your page from Google search, they are looking for blue chairs and are expecting to find blue chairs, but instead discover there aren\u2019t any chairs available!<\/span><\/p>

It\u2019s for this reason why Google created the soft 404 error label\u2014it\u2019s a label, not an official HTTP response code\u2014to deal with thin or non-existent content and ensure that only quality results appear in search.<\/span><\/p>

So what happens to pages that get a soft 404? <\/span>Google doesn\u2019t index these pages.<\/b><\/p>

Essentially, Google doesn\u2019t want to waste its resources trying to crawl pages that send conflicting signals, no longer exist, or don\u2019t offer valuable, quality content. So it simply removes them from its index and gets on with crawling pages that actually exist.<\/span><\/p>—\n

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