A soft 404 error occurs when a webpage exists but has very little or no content. Or it can be empty archive pages. This confuses search engines like Google, wasting their time and potentially harming your website’s visibility.
According to Google Search Central: The page request returns what we think is a soft 404 response. This means that it returns a user-friendly “not found” message but not a 404 HTTP response code. We recommend returning a 404 response code for truly “not found” pages and adding more information on the page to let us know that it is not a soft 404. To see how Google sees the page, run a live URL inspection test against the page and click View tested page to see a screenshot showing how Google renders the page.
Why Are Soft 404 Errors Bad?
- Search Engines Prioritize Valuable Content: Empty pages are seen as low-quality.
- Google Has Limited Resources to Crawl Websites: Spending time on empty pages reduces its ability to find your good content.
How to Fix
1- Identify the Problem Pages:
- Use Google Search Console (GSC) to find pages marked as soft 404 errors.
2- Evaluate the Page:
- Improve: Add substantial content to make the page valuable.
- Redirect: If the page is no longer relevant, redirect visitors to a similar page using a 301 redirect.
- Remove: Delete the page completely if it’s unnecessary. Ensure you implement a proper 404 or 410 status code.
3- Update Google:
- After making changes, request a re-crawl in GSC to inform the search engine about the updates.
Conclusion
Fixing soft 404 errors not only helps search engines crawl your site more effectively but also ensures a better experience for your users. Regularly check GSC for these errors and follow the steps above to address them promptly. By doing so, you’ll keep both your visitors and search engines happy!
