Soft 404 Errors Explained: Causes, SEO Impact, and How to Fix Them

SEO | Technical SEO

Published: Mar 29, 2025

Updated on: Aug 24, 2025

Soft 404 Errors Explained: Causes, SEO Impact, and How to Fix Them

Summary: Soft 404 errors mislead search engines by showing valid pages with no useful content, impacting SEO, indexing, and user experience. Fixing them requires proper HTTP status codes, content improvement, and regular audits.

Key takeaways:-

Soft 404 errors occur when empty pages return a “200 OK” status instead of “404 Not Found.”
They waste crawl budget and harm search rankings by misleading search engines.
Fixing soft 404s involves content optimization, proper redirects, and correct HTTP response codes.
SEO tools like Google Search Console and Ahrefs help detect and resolve soft 404 errors.
Regular audits ensure a clean site structure and prevent recurring soft 404 issues.

For anyone in the SEO community, having a site that works properly and provides a smooth user experience is important. One problem that likes to interfere with this is the occurrence of soft 404 errors.

Knowing why they happen, what causes 404 errors, how they affect, and how to correct them is crucial to enterprise-level sites that wish to preserve the best search engine visibility.

Table of Contents

What is a Soft 404 Error?

A soft 404 meaning is that a page looks like a 404 (not found) but does not reflect the proper HTTP status code. The server reflects a normal “404 Not Found” status instead of sending back a “200 OK” status code to declare that the page is running well when, in fact, it contains no useful information.

Discover What Your Customers Search For Discover What Your Customers Search For

Get insights on evolving customer behaviour, high volume keywords, search trends, and more.

Explore more

Reasons for Soft 404 Errors

Soft 404s may occur owing to any number of problems, such as:

Thin or Non-Existing Content: Blank or hardly useful content on a page leads to soft 404s. These usually happen where there are placeholder pages or blank categories.
Server Configurations: Misconfigured servers may offer blank or unrelated content and a 200 status instead of an actual 404.
Incorrect Redirects: Redirecting the deleted or non-existent pages to less relevant content (like the home page) instead of displaying a 404 can cause soft 404 problems.
Dynamic URL Parameters: Improperly configured dynamic URL structures can result in valid-looking pages but without actual content, which results in soft 404 errors.
CMS or Plugin Errors: Certain content management systems (CMS) or plugins may wrongly create empty pages or placeholder content, misleading search engines into considering them soft 404s.

Differences Between Regular 404 and Soft 404 Errors

Recognizing the distinction between a soft 404 error and a standard 404 error is imperative to successful debugging.

Feature	Regular 404 Error	Soft 404 Error
HTTP Status Code	404 Not Found	200 OK (incorrectly used)
Search Engine Impact	A clear signal to de-index the page	Confuses search engines, potentially causing indexing issues
User Experience	Shows a clear “Page Not Found” message	May mislead users with irrelevant or blank content
Fixability	Straightforward – return a proper 404 or redirect	Requires correction of misconfigurations and improper redirects

SEO Impacts of Soft 404 Errors

Soft 404 errors can have severe SEO impacts if left unresolved:

Indexing Problems: Because search engines expect valid content when they encounter a 200 status code, they may end up indexing thin or non-existent pages, which can lead to indexing issues and negatively impact SEO performance.
Wasted Crawl Budget: Large sites, particularly enterprise-level businesses, are limited by crawl budget. Search engines spend time crawling and re-crawling soft 404 pages when they might be devoted to high-value content.
Dilution of SEO Authority: Internal linking and authority distribution are diluted when search engines crawl off-topic pages in mistake rather than more valuable content.
Poor User Experience: Users sent to soft 404 pages can become frustrated and bounce off, resulting in higher bounce rates and less engagement.
Ranking Drops: Google algorithms will punish a site if they identify too many soft 404 errors, which indicate bad content quality and poor site management.

How Do Soft 404 Errors Affect a Website?

Large websites and businesses should be especially watchful of soft 404 errors, as they directly affect search engine rank, user experience, and general site performance.

Negative Impact on Organic Traffic

If search engines are presented with many soft 404 errors, they will demote the affected pages or de-prioritize the site in search.

Misindexing causes a lowering in the number of correctly ranked pages, hiding them from view.

Low Site Authority

When numerous pages on a website generate soft 404s, search engines will consider the site poorly maintained.

High-quality pages of content can be crawled less often, resulting in lower domain authority.

User Discontent and High Bounce Rate

Users anticipating useful content might be faced with blank or deceptive pages, resulting in discontent.

A high bounce rate informs search engines that the site offers a suboptimal user experience, which can impact rankings.

Wastage of Crawl Budget

Large business properties must properly manage crawl budgets to index high-value pages.

Soft 404s waste crawl resources unnecessarily and cause ineffective ranking and indexing of high-value content.

Where to Find Soft 404 Errors?

Identification of soft 404 errors is the most important step towards fixing them. There are several tools to detect such errors effectively.

Google Search Console

Go to the Coverage Report in Google Search Console.
Search in the “Excluded” category for “Soft 404” errors.
Check listed URLs and see if they are being wrongly flagged.

Google Analytics

Monitor pages with exceptionally high bounce rates or low time-on-page scores.
Implement event tracking on 404 error pages to detect soft 404 trends.

SEO Audit Tools

Employ business-level SEO tools such as Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz, and Screaming Frog to crawl the website and detect soft 404 errors.
Search for pages with 200 status codes but minimal to no useful content.

Manual Testing

Manually inspect flagged pages by mimicking search engine activity with browser developer tools.
Server responses and on-page content may be compared to see if there is a soft 404 problem.

Log File Analysis

Analysis of server log files may indicate requests made to pages with atypical status codes returned by them.
Patterns that signify that search engines have found soft 404s can be identified.

How to Fix Soft 404 Errors?

Repairing soft 404 errors is essential for maintaining healthy SEO rankings and a smooth user experience. These errors often result from various technical SEO issues such as improper redirects, thin content, or server misconfigurations. Addressing these problems ensures your site is properly optimized and indexed by search engines.

Effective tips for repairing soft 404 errors are provided below to help resolve these issues and improve your site’s performance.

Enhance Thin or Poor Content

Soft 404 errors are one of the major causes of pages with insignificant or no meaningful content. Even if a page is empty and yet exists, search engines can term it as a soft 404. To handle this:

Develop content with valid information, photos, and media.
Align content with user motivation and search keywords.
Use accurate formatting with subtitles, bullet lists, and semistructured data to facilitate easy reading.

Utilize Correct HTTP Status Codes

Pages that previously returned a 200 (OK) status but no longer exist may cause soft 404s. Instead:

Use a 301 redirect to direct users to a suitable alternative page.
If no suitable page is available to show proper deletion, return a 404 (Not Found) or 410 (Gone) status code.
Do not redirect to unrelated pages because search engines will continue to flag them as soft 404s.

Correct Redirects

Redirection chains or redirection abuse may lead to soft 404s. To avoid it:

Redirect individuals to the most appropriate, up-to-date page instead of the homepage.
Check redirects regularly to confirm they are pointing to the correct content.
Use tools like Google Search Console, Ahrefs, or Screaming Frog to find and repair broken redirects.

Resolve Server Configuration Problems

Occasionally, server setups can make a page soft 404 while having decent content. To correct this, try the following:

Check server logs for misconfiguration.
Make sure proper HTTP response codes are sent.
Check site performance and availability using Google PageSpeed Insights, among other tools.

Expired or Outdated Content

For ecommerce sites or those with transient pages (e.g., job offers, product pages), stale content may cause soft 404 errors. Attempt:

Redirecting visitors to comparable products or updated job offers.
Returning a notification that the product isn’t available, along with recommendations.
Employing structured data to allow search engines to recognise content updates.

Remove or Update Internal Broken Links

Soft 404s may be the result of internal links that are out of date or broken. The best practice is to:

Regularly link audits with tools such as Screaming Frog.
Remove or replace missing page links.
Utilize breadcrumbs and best practice internal linking to help users navigate.

Report Fixes to Google

Once soft 404 errors have been fixed, inform Google by:

Utilizing Google Search Console to report that the issues have been resolved.
Asking Google to recrawl altered or redirected pages.
Monitoring reports to prevent the errors from recurring.

Through constant monitoring and correcting such issues, businesses can have a clean site architecture and improve user experience.

Conclusion

Soft 404 errors can irreparably hurt a website’s SEO and overall performance. Though they might seem insignificant, search engines penalize them as an indicator of poor site management, resulting in lost ranking.

For maintaining the best website health, companies need to constantly scan for soft 404 problems and implement effective remedies, which include:

Content optimization for enhanced user value.
Proper implementation of HTTP response codes.
Proper use of redirects without confusing users.
Proper handling of stale pages.
Regular internal linking auditing.

For business websites handling thousands of web pages, soft 404 error fixing must be part of technical SEO practices. Google Search Console, Ahrefs, and Screaming Frog are some good tools for detecting and fixing 404 errors.

Neha Bawa

Director of Brand Marketing

Neha Bawa is the Director of Brand Marketing at Techmagnate. She has worked in Digital Marketing since 2012 and has specialised in content creation. She has earned a Master’s degree in Interactive Communications from Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, U.S.A. Her interests lie in creating great content, docs, and working towards sustainability through biodiversity.