What is a soft 404 in Google Search Console?

Q: What is a soft 404 in Google Search Console?

A soft 404 is a page that returns 200 OK but looks like an error or an empty page to Google. Fix it with a real 404 or 410, a 301, or real content.

A soft 404 is a URL that returns a 200 OK status but shows something Google reads as an error: a "page not found" message, an empty or nearly empty page, or a page whose main content failed to load. The server says success while the page says failure, so Google keeps it out of Search and lists it as Soft 404 in the Page indexing report. The fix depends on whether the page should exist.

What causes soft 404s?

Google's crawl error guide describes a soft 404 as a page telling users it does not exist while returning a 200 code, and lists technical causes such as a missing server-side include file, a broken database connection, or a JavaScript file that failed to load. In practice the usual sources are:

Error pages served with the wrong code. A CMS or a single-page app shows a friendly "not found" page but sends 200.
Empty templates. A category, tag or search results page with nothing in it.
Content that failed to render. Blocked resources, server errors or scripts that time out leave Googlebot with a blank page, even though visitors see content.

How do I fix a soft 404?

Situation	Fix
The page no longer exists	Return `404` (not found) or `410` (gone). A custom error page is fine, as long as it sends the error code.
The page moved or has a replacement	Redirect with a `301` to the replacement, then check the result with URL Inspection.
The page should exist and has content	Find out why Google sees it as empty: inspect it and look at what Googlebot rendered.
The page exists but is genuinely thin	Add the content that makes it useful, or merge it into a stronger page.

A 404 for a page you removed on purpose is not a problem: Google's Page indexing help says 404 responses are fine when a page has been removed with no replacement, and Google drops such URLs from its index.

How to see what Google saw

Inspect the URL in Search Console and click Test live URL.
Open View tested page to see the screenshot, the rendered HTML and the HTTP response.
If the screenshot is blank or shows an error, check the resources Google could not load, server errors and slow responses.
Confirm the status code from outside your browser: curl -I https://example.com/page.

After fixing it

Once every affected URL is fixed, open the Soft 404 reason in the Page indexing report and click Validate fix. Google checks a sample, then recrawls only the URLs known to have the issue. Google's Page indexing report help says validation typically takes up to about two weeks, sometimes much longer.

Soft 404 or real 404: which is worse?

A real 404 or 410 is an honest answer and costs you nothing for a page that is truly gone. A soft 404 leaves Google to guess, and when it guesses wrong it can also catch a real page whose content did not render. Send the status code that matches the truth, and keep 200 for pages with something on them. For other indexing statuses, see Google Search Console 404 errors and excluded pages.

How AutoPSEO helps

AutoPSEO's URL Inspection checks up to 500 URLs per run and shows each one's coverage state, so you can test a whole section or sitemap for soft 404s after a release instead of waiting for the report. The Index Tracker rechecks your key pages daily and can alert you when one drops out of the index, which is often the first sign a template started rendering empty.