404 vs. Soft 410

The major difference between 404 not Found and soft 404 is that the page was not found and a 404 or 410 code was returned as status. The returned code 404 is the true status of the missing page.

On the other hand, a soft 404 is a missing or invalid page yet a 200 success code was returned. The ideal situation would have been for both cases to return 404-not-found, but instead one of the cases returned a success code.

Also, search engines do not index 404 pages since they have been declared missing or invalid. This means a 404 page will not appear in search results.

However, search engines do index soft 404 pages and they also appear in search results even though the pages may be missing or invalid.

Ways of Finding and Fixing Soft 404 Errors

The first step towards fixing soft 404 errors is finding out the cause and nature of the error. The error could be the case of a valid page that search engines think is invalid or a missing page but the server returns a 200 OK success code.

These issues have to be resolved as early as possible because they end up confusing search engine crawlers. From your Google Search Console, you will be able to find out the soft 404 error using the Coverage Report and the URL inspection tool.

It’s assumed that your website is registered with Google but if you haven't done that, then you would have to get it done right now.