404 soft error

[zayn_william]

What causes 404 soft errors? How to fix them? What is the difference between 404 & 404 soft errors?

[Delaney martin]

A soft 404 error is an unofficial status code that occurs when a server displays a webpage and returns a 200 OK status code, signaling success, even though the webpage or its content is missing.

A Few ways to fix 404 soft errors are:

• The misconfiguration of the web server causes it to deliver an incorrect status code when handling requests for non-existent pages.
• Set Up a 404 or 410 error if the page Doesn’t Exist.
• Improve the Content and Reindex if the page Exists & still gets an error.
• Set Up a 301 Redirect if the Page is Moved.
• Set Empty Archive to Noindex.

Difference between 404 & 404 soft error:
The distinction between 404 Not Found errors and soft 404 errors lies in the fact that, in the case of 404 errors, the page genuinely cannot be found, and the server returns an appropriate HTTP status code of 404 or 410 (which accurately indicates that the page is not found).

When encountering a soft 404 error, the page is not found. However, instead of returning the expected HTTP status code 404, the server responds with the 200 Success code, which creates a misleading impression.

Another significant distinction is that 404 pages are not eligible for indexing by search engines, leading to their exclusion from search results. Conversely, soft 404 pages are indexed by search engines and have the potential to be displayed in search results.