What are Soft 404s?
Soft 404s are error pages which are generally generated when a page requested by a user can’t be found or is not available. These pages usually contain a status code of 404, but instead of providing error messages like “Page not found” they provide some other message, such as “no content here” or “try searching”. Soft 404s can lead to search engines crawling and indexing pages that do not exist, which in turn can harm any website’s rankings.
How to Fix Soft 404s
The first step in fixing soft 404s is to identify them. To do this, view the source code of the page and look for the code “404.” The most reliable way to know if a page is a soft 404 is to enter the page’s URL in a search engine and see if the page appears in the search results or not.
If a web page turns out to be a soft 404, the next step is to fix it. To do this, the page’s code should be changed to include a text based error message such as “page not found” or “file not found.” It is also important to make sure the status code is changed to 404.
It is also important to note that soft 404s are not the same as broken links. Broken links are links from one page to another page that returns an error or page not found notice. Soft 404s on the other hand are pages that return a page produced by the server when the page being requested does not exist.
In conclusion, soft 404s can have a negative impact on a websites rankings. Identifying them and fixing them should be a priority for any website owner in order to ensure the best SEO rankings.