Soft 404s: What They Are and How to Fix Them

A soft 404 is a page that looks "not found" to a user — empty, thin, or an error message — but returns an HTTP 200 OK status instead of a proper 404 or 410. Google flags these because the status code lies about the page.

Why they are a problem

Soft 404s waste crawl budget (Google keeps treating dead pages as live), clutter the index with valueless URLs, and muddy your coverage reports. At scale they drag on site quality.

Common causes

• Empty category, search, or filter pages that return 200 with no results.
• Thin pages Google deems valueless even though they technically load.
• "Not found" templates that forget to send a 404 status.
• Redirecting dead pages to the homepage — Google often classifies these as soft 404s.

How to fix them

1. Return the right status: genuinely missing pages should send 404 or 410, not 200.
2. Add real value to thin pages that should exist, or noindex/remove them.
3. Handle empty states (no search results, empty categories) deliberately — useful content or a proper status.
4. Redirect only to relevant pages, never blanket-to-homepage.
5. Monitor the Soft 404 bucket in Search Console.

Related: 404 vs 410