Webmasters Stack Exchange
Webmasters Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [soft-404]

A status assigned by google to links that don't return a 404 status but are based on the content suspected to be "Not found" pages.

54 questions
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How do I stop Soft 404 errors from piling up for "No Results" page?

Recently, I noticed that I have a growing list of Soft 404 errors in Google Webmaster Tools. They are all for dynamically generated search result pages that report "No matches found". I do understand what Google means by Soft 404 and why they are…
toxalot
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How to fix "Soft 404" to firm 200 OK?

Some of the web-pages on my site are very slim. I've recently noticed that Google appears to qualify such pages as "Soft 404": The target URL doesn't exist, but your server is not returning a 404 (file not found) error. Learn more Your server…
cnst
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Could a brand name called "Error 404" cause SEO issues?

This is a strange question, but I really struggled to find any decent info by searching for it. I have a client who has a new e-commerce product collection called "Error 404", and they want me to create a landing page for it. Bad user experience…
Cam Parry
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WordPress with SOFT 404 in Google Search Console (WMT) What causes Q82019309.com?

My brothers site that I designed for him awhile has hundreds of SOFT 404's reported in Google's Search Console formerly Webmaster Tools. Generally I find fixing soft 404 easy but this has me a little stumped. All the soft errors are returning a odd…
Simon Hayter
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Wrong URL Requested But I know what they meant - 404 vs canonical vs 301 redirect

I'm using mod_rewrite to process variables in the URL. For many of my URLs the final portion of the string doesn't matter because I'm not using it. For instance: /review/company-25/jb-hunt I'm only using the "company-25" portion to tell me which…
user2044510
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What's the smallest page size for Googlebot to not go "Soft 404"?

Google appears to have two documents for Soft 404: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/181708?hl=en&ctx=tltp https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2409443?ctx=MCE&ctx=S4 Neither one goes into any detail of what criteria is used to…
cnst
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Recreating content for 404 backlinks

I have bought a domain with a lot of backlinks from fairly high authority sites. Almost all of those 404 now, since the content no longer exists. In most cases I have to infer from the link what the content was, for instance a picture of the grand…
Jan Bussieck
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Is serving a blank page rather than a 404 error bad for SEO?

My website is set up in such a way such that any rubbish URL (e.g. example.com/asdfgh) will get a blank page and not a 404 error. I am not sure if its bad or good for SEO. Could you let me know what do you think about this. This is only reaction on…
vectorization
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Why is a map page reported as a "soft 404" in Google Search Console?

I'm trying to debug Soft 404 errors in Search Console. The Soft 404's keep appearing. If I try to "Fetch as Google" it seems like they returns a valid response. HTTP/1.1 200 OK Server: TornadoServer/4.2.1 Content-Type: text/html;…
a_b
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Googlebots request types

Does Google's bot send HEAD requests as well as GET requests? I wondering about this because I'm running a Tornado application that does not support HEAD request and I have a lot of 404 errors in Google Search Console. To verify that the Tornado…
a_b
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Soft 404, Fetch and Render showing js bundle temporarily unreachable

We recently launched a new page to our site. Previously our whole site has been in classic asp and this page is an angular SPA with asp.net on the backend. Since the launch of the new page our amount of soft 404s have dramatically increased with…
Aarmora
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Why does Google report a soft 404 when I redirect to the signup page?

In the last month, I've got an increased number of "soft 404" errors reported by Google webmaster tools which actually work well for users. Configuration (maybe useless): I have a website built with rails 3.1 Authentication is handled by the gem…
Hettomei
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In Google webmaster tools, can a "soft 404" be triggered by the text on the page?

I just ran across an error in Google Webmaster Tools that I have never seen before. I manage the website for my local community band (I play trombone). One of the pages on the site is a list of our upcoming performances. It is powered by a…
Stephen Ostermiller
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All pages from my site are showing a 404 error in the Google cache from search results

For the last 30 days, all internal pages of my website have been showing 404 error in the Google cache. When I click on 'Cached' on any page, it shows below error message: The requested URL…
Kittu
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Soft 404 errors cause ranking drop or penalty?

I own a free press release website with over 15k articles. i am in the process of cleaning up the site for spam and have removed over 100 pages but it causes soft 404 errors in Google webmasters console. I get about 100 uniques every day from…
pbu
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