What is a soft 404?
A soft 404 is a page that tells visitors the requested content does not exist, but sends the crawler the HTTP status code 200 for a successful request. Google recognizes this contradiction, treats the URL like an error page, and does not add it to the index. In Google Search Console, such a URL appears in the page indexing report with the reason “Soft 404”.
Term profile
| Attribute | Details |
|---|---|
| Part of speech | Noun, also soft 404 error |
| Pronunciation | [sɔːft ˌfɔːr oʊ ˈfɔːr] |
| Status code delivered | 200 OK or another 2xx code |
| Status code expected | 404 Not Found or 410 Gone |
| Where to find it | Google Search Console, Indexing, Pages, reason “Soft 404” |
| Reported by Google since | June 2010, back then in the “Crawl errors” report |
| Related terms | HTTP status code, 404 error, 301 redirect, indexing, noindex |
What is the difference between a 404, a 410, and a soft 404?
A 404 and a 410 tell the crawler in the status code that a page is missing, while a soft 404 reports success and still shows an error message. The HTTP status code is the first piece of information a crawler receives from a server. It decides whether Google processes the content of the page at all.
| Response | Status code | Signal to Google | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Real 404 | 404 Not Found | The page does not exist | The URL drops out of the index, Google checks it less often |
| 410 | 410 Gone | The page was removed permanently | Treated like a 404 by Google |
| Soft 404 | 200 OK | Success, even though the content is missing | Google has to detect the contradiction itself |
| Normal page | 200 OK | Success with real content | The page can be indexed |
According to its own documentation, Google treats all 4xx errors except 429 the same way: The crawler tells the next processing step that the content does not exist. For Google, there is therefore no practical difference between a 404 and a 410. With a soft 404, this clear signal is missing. Google evaluates the visible content and uses error texts, empty areas, and very little text to decide whether the page is really an error.
How does a soft 404 happen?
A soft 404 happens in 5 typical situations in which the server and the page content say different things. The first three are configuration errors, the last two concern pages Google considers empty.
- Error page with status code 200: The content management system shows a friendly error page for unknown addresses but delivers code 200 with it. Common causes are custom error pages and redirect rules in the server configuration.
- Redirect to an unsuitable target: Deleted products or articles redirect across the board to the homepage or a general category. Google recognizes that the target does not replace the old page and reports the old URL as a soft 404.
- JavaScript applications: Single-page applications deliver the same HTML shell with code 200 for every address and only show the error message once the JavaScript has run in the browser.
- Empty pages: Categories without products, internal search results without matches, sold-out items with the note “no longer available”, or placeholder pages under construction.
- Content Google does not see: Blocked scripts, rendering errors, or content that only loads after a user action. The page has content for visitors but stays empty for the crawler.
The fifth cause is the trickiest, because it affects real pages. If a page with content is reported as a soft 404, first check what Google actually saw when rendering it. What can go wrong when JavaScript is rendered is covered in the entry on JavaScript SEO.
Why does a soft 404 hurt a website?
A soft 404 wastes crawling resources, keeps important pages out of the index, and leaves users at a dead end. The damage varies depending on the cause:
- Wasted crawl budget: Google keeps fetching error pages with code 200 because the server reports success. On large websites, this crawl budget is then missing for new and updated pages.
- Pages drop out of the index: If a real page is wrongly classified as a soft 404, it disappears from Google Search even though it has content. Indexing then fails because of how the page is rendered.
- Lost link equity: External links to a deleted page that redirects across the board to the homepage lose their effect as soon as Google treats the redirect as a soft 404.
- Unclear signals for AI crawlers: AI crawlers usually do not run JavaScript and only read the delivered HTML along with the status code. An error page with code 200 looks like a valid page to them. According to an analysis by Vercel from December 2024, 34.82 percent of fetches by ChatGPT’s crawler landed on 404 pages. Clear status codes help these crawlers recognize errors as errors.
How AI crawlers differ from classic search engine crawlers is explained in the entry on AI crawlers.
How do you find soft 404s on your website?
You find soft 404s with 3 methods: in the page indexing report of Google Search Console, with the URL Inspection tool, and with a test on a made-up address. Together, they show both the cases Google has already detected and the cause in the server configuration.
- Page indexing report: In Google Search Console under “Indexing”, “Pages”, the reason “Soft 404” lists all affected URLs. The list shows up to 1,000 examples.
- URL Inspection with a live test: The live test shows a screenshot and the rendered HTML code, just as Googlebot sees the page. If the content is missing there, the cause lies in rendering.
- Test with a made-up address: Open a URL that certainly does not exist, such as
/does-not-exist-4711/, and check the status code in the browser’s developer tools or with a header checker. If 200 appears, the website creates a soft 404 for every missing page.
We ran the third test for taismo.de on October 5, 2026. Made-up addresses in the German and in the English glossary, under /en/what-is/, return the status code 404, so the error page is set up correctly. In addition, a website crawler finds pages with code 200 and conspicuously little text; they are the candidates Google might classify as a soft 404 next.
How do you fix a soft 404?
A soft 404 is fixed in one of 5 ways depending on the cause, and only then do you start the validation in Search Console. The deciding question is whether the page should exist or not.
| Situation | Solution |
|---|---|
| The page no longer exists, and there is no replacement | Deliver status code 404 or 410 |
| The content has moved or has an equivalent successor | 301 redirect to exactly this successor |
| The page should stay but is empty or thin | Add content or remove the page from the index with noindex |
| A JavaScript application only shows the error message in the browser | Use JavaScript to redirect to a URL with a real 404, or set noindex with JavaScript |
| The page has content, but Google does not see it | Check rendering, unblock resources, deliver content in the HTML |
Google itself recommends the two approaches for JavaScript applications in its JavaScript SEO basics. For thin pages that should stay, the noindex attribute is the clean choice as long as content is missing. A redirect only helps if the target truly replaces the old page; how that works is explained in the entry on the 301 redirect. Soft 404s appear especially often during a relaunch, because many addresses disappear at once. Our SEO checklist for a website migration shows how a complete redirect map prevents this. Soft 404s are among the findings that every SEO audit by taismo lists URL by URL.
Frequently asked questions about soft 404s
Does a soft 404 affect rankings?
A soft 404 does not directly affect the ranking of other pages. The affected URL itself is not indexed, and many soft 404s use up crawl budget that important pages need.
Should you redirect deleted pages to the homepage?
Deleted pages should only be redirected if there is an equivalent target page. Google often treats a blanket redirect to the homepage as a soft 404, and a real 404 is then the better answer.
How long does it take for Google to reassess a fixed soft 404?
Google reassesses a corrected URL the next time it crawls it, which takes days to weeks depending on the website. The “Validate fix” button in the page indexing report of Search Console starts the check.
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