Google Clarifies: Soft 404s Can Drain Your Crawl Budget Even with a 200 OK Status

Google recently clarified an important nuance in how it handles soft 404s, and it’s a wake-up call for site owners—especially those managing large websites.

What Are Soft 404s?

A soft 404 occurs when a page returns a 200 OK status (indicating success) but displays content that essentially says, “This page doesn’t exist” or “Product not found.” These aren’t true 404 errors, but Google can detect them by analyzing the page content.

Why Soft 404s Matter for SEO

Unlike traditional 404s, soft 404s consume crawl budget—Googlebot’s limited resource allocated to crawl your site. This means Google is spending time on pages that bring no SEO value, instead of indexing more important content.

For high-traffic or content-rich websites, this can lead to delays in discovering new or updated content.

How to Spot Soft 404s

You can find soft 404s in your Google Search Console under the Index Coverage report. Common examples include:

• Product pages marked “Out of Stock” but returning a 200 status
• Empty category or search result pages
• Expired event pages
• Deleted user profiles with placeholder text

These often look fine to your CMS or server, but Google sees them as dead ends.

Fixing Soft 404s: Best Practices

To reduce crawl waste and improve SEO, here’s what Google recommends:

• Return a proper 404 or 410 status for content that’s permanently gone
• Use 301 redirects for content that’s been moved
• Avoid empty pages—use structured data to indicate out-of-stock status
• Design helpful 404 pages with links to active content or a search bar

Soft 404s may seem harmless, but they can quietly undermine your site’s SEO health. By proactively identifying and resolving these pages, you ensure Google spends its crawl budget on content that actually matters.

At Earn SEO, we specialize in helping businesses improve crawl efficiency, fix indexing issues, and eliminate soft 404s that waste your crawl budget. Our team of SEO experts in NYC can audit your website, optimize its structure, and ensure your most valuable content gets seen by search engines. Ready to maximize your crawl budget and boost organic visibility? Contact us today for a custom technical SEO strategy tailored to your site.