Submitted URL seems to be a Soft 404

Tin

Business Member
Nov 14, 2005
2,931
1,427
Herefordshire
www.tinsoldierdesign.co.uk
A Soft 404' error occurs when a non-existent page (a page that has been deleted/removed) displays a 'page not found' message in the persons browser to anyone trying to access it, but fails to return a HTTP 404 status code.

If you go here https://www.webconfs.com/http-header-check.php and in that white box enter the url of your page in it (the url above) click 'submit' and it'll tell you that the url gives a http code of 200 (which means that the url is "found"), the browser is seeing a 'live page' so it's not an actual 404 page.

It's an easy fix so ask your web guy to sort it for you. Hope that helps.
 
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gpietersz

Free Member
  • Business Listing
    Sep 10, 2019
    2,777
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    736
    Northwhich, Cheshire
    pietersz.net
    You can check it in your web browser.

    Both Firefox and Chrome have developer tools that let you see request and response headers.

    Its not a critical issue and probably will not impact SEO as Google has recognised its a soft 404. On the other hand its better to send a real 404 and it should be an easy issue to fix so you might as well do it.
     
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    A soft 404 URL indicates that the page does not exist and also returns a 200 level success code. The big issue is that returning a success code for a page other than 404 (not found) page is a bad practise. The success code tells search engine that there's a real page at that URL.

    If your page has moved or has a replacement, the best thing would be to use a permanent 301 redirection.
     
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