A soft 404 is a page that returns a success status while behaving like a missing page. The server says everything is fine; the content says otherwise. Search engines resolve the contradiction by treating it as missing and dropping it from the index.
How they happen
Redirecting dead pages to the homepage
The most common cause and the most damaging at scale. A product is discontinued, so its URL redirects to the homepage. The homepage is not a replacement for that product, so the redirect is treated as an admission the page is gone — and none of the value transfers.
Doing this across hundreds of retired products turns a redirect strategy into a large-scale soft 404 problem. See discontinued products.
Empty listing pages returning 200
A category with no products in stock, a search results page with no matches, a filtered view returning nothing. The template renders, the status is 200, and the page has nothing on it.
Error pages that do not return an error
A custom “page not found” design that returns 200 instead of 404. Every mistyped URL then becomes an indexable page saying nothing was found.
Genuinely thin pages
Sometimes there is no fault at all — the page simply has too little content to be worth indexing, and the report is a content judgement rather than a status-code problem.
Getting the status right
- 404 — the page is gone. Correct, unremarkable, and not damaging in normal numbers.
- 410 — gone permanently and deliberately. Processed slightly faster than a 404. See 404 vs 410.
- 301 — only where a genuine equivalent exists.
- 200 — only where there is real content.
Returning a proper 404 is not a failure. Sites lose far more from mass-redirecting dead pages somewhere irrelevant than from honest 404s.
Deciding what to do with a retired page
- A direct replacement exists — redirect to it.
- No replacement, but a relevant category — redirect there, provided the category genuinely serves the same need.
- Nothing comparable — return 410 or 404.
- Temporarily unavailable — keep the page, return 200, and say so on the page. See out of stock products.
Finding them
Search Console reports them under indexing as “Soft 404”. Work through that list and establish which category each falls into — a wrong status code, an empty page, or a thin one. Each has a different fix and only the first is a technical error.
Frequently asked questions
Are 404s bad for SEO?
In normal numbers, no. Pages disappear; that is expected. A sudden spike matters because it usually indicates something broke.
Why not redirect everything to the homepage?
Because it is treated as a soft 404 and passes nothing, while also giving visitors a worse experience than an honest error page.
Should my 404 page be indexable?
It should return a 404 status. What is indexable follows from that — a correct 404 will not be indexed.
Empty category pages — 404 or 200?
If the category will refill, keep it and return 200 with content explaining the situation. If it is permanently empty, remove it properly.
Consulting CTA
If Search Console is reporting soft 404s and the cause is unclear, book an SEO consultation.