Low impactIndexing & crawl
Soft 404 Errors
Pages that return 200 OK but show "not found" content confuse Google. Here's how to send the right status code.
What it means
A page returns HTTP 200 OK but its content is a "not found" message, an empty result, or near-empty.
Why it matters
Google detects these as "soft 404s" and may drop them from the index inconsistently. Worse, they waste crawl budget.
How to fix it
- When a page truly doesn't exist, return a real HTTP 404 (or 410 if permanent).
- Make sure your custom 404 page returns 404, not 200.
- For empty category/search pages, add at least some real content so they're not technically empty.
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Frequently asked questions
How do I check the status code?
Use curl -I https://yoursite.com/missing-page or browser DevTools Network tab.