How To Detect And Fix Soft 404s And 404 Errors
- 26 December, 2019
- Jason Ferry
- Search Engine Optimisation Consultant
404 errors are response codes that signify a missing webpage that probably won’t be back up again soon. On the other hand, a soft 404 is a label Google uses to identify 404 pages so it doesn’t waste resources indexing them. There are cases, however, where a webpage is misidentified as a missing page. This issue can be caused by having overly similar pages or lack of content, which can be harmful to search engine optimisation efforts.
The common causes of 404 errors are either missing pages or linking errors. If a page no longer exists, you can fix this by restoring the page or providing a 301 redirect to another related page. For linking errors, you simply have to find and fix all the broken links. Tools such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and various other backlink research programs can help you correct these problems.
Soft 404s, however, can’t be detected with crawling tools because they aren’t real 404s. What you can do is use crawling tools to find thin or duplicate content so they can easily be fixed. When solving these problems, you should consider merging multiple thin content pages with related topics or fixing technical issues that may be causing duplicate content.
It’s wise to always incorporate crawling tools in your SEO strategy and regularly crawl your website to quickly detect any 404 errors or soft 404s.
The information in this blog post was taken from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/technical-seo/404-vs-soft-404-errors/. Visit the link to know more.
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