Soft 404 — What It Means and How to Fix It

What is a soft 404?

A soft 404 happens when a page returns an HTTP 200 OK status but Google detects that the page content looks like an error or is nearly empty. Google then treats it as a 404 for indexing purposes.

The HTTP 200 status tells crawlers "everything is fine", but the content says the opposite — this mismatch is what makes it a soft 404.

Common causes

• Search result pages with no results — e.g. /search?q=emptysearch returns 200 with "no results found"
• Empty category or tag pages with no posts yet
• Product pages for out-of-stock or deleted products that still load but show minimal content
• Placeholder pages launched before content was added
• Pages that show personalised content and return near-empty HTML to Googlebot

How to fix soft 404s

1. Add real content to the page

   If the page should exist, make sure it renders meaningful content to Googlebot. For empty category pages, add a description or related products.

2. Return a proper 404 or 410 status

   If the page genuinely doesn't exist (deleted product, empty search), return HTTP 404 or 410 instead of 200. This is more honest and helps Google process the URL correctly.

3. Redirect to a relevant page

   For discontinued products, redirect to the closest category page or a similar product. Avoid redirecting to the homepage.

4. Add noindex to low-value generated pages

   For search result pages and filtered listing pages you don't want indexed, add <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> so Google stops crawling them.