Soft 404 vs Hard 404 in SEO: What’s the Difference and Why It Matters
When a page disappears from a website, how your server and content respond sends important signals to search engines. In SEO, not all “missing pages” are treated equally. Two terms that often cause confusion are hard 404s and soft 404s. While they sound similar, they behave very differently, and those differences can have a real impact on crawling, indexing, and overall site quality.
This article explains what soft and hard 404s are, how search engines interpret them, and why getting them right matters for SEO.
What Is a Hard 404?
A hard 404 occurs when a server correctly returns an HTTP 404 status code, meaning “this page does not exist.”
This is the clearest and most technically correct way to tell search engines that a URL is gone.
Common causes of hard 404s include:
- A deleted product or blog post with no replacement
- A mistyped or outdated URL
- Pages removed during a site migration
From an SEO perspective, hard 404s are not inherently bad. Search engines expect them and handle them efficiently. When Google encounters a true 404:
- The page is gradually removed from the index
- Crawl resources are reduced over time
- Any signals associated with the page are dropped
As long as hard 404s are intentional and limited in number, they are a normal part of maintaining a healthy website.
What Is a Soft 404?
A soft 404 happens when a page looks like it’s missing to users, but the server returns a 200 (OK) status, or sometimes a 301 or 302 redirect, instead of a 404.
Examples include:
- A “Page not found” message displayed on a normal page template
- An empty product page saying “no longer available”
- Redirecting all deleted URLs to the homepage
- Thin pages with no meaningful content that still return 200
Search engines must infer that these pages are effectively non-existent. When Google detects this mismatch, it may label the URL as a soft 404, often flagged in tools like Google Search Console.
Key Differences Between Soft and Hard 404s
| Aspect | Hard 404 | Soft 404 |
| HTTP status | 404 (Not Found) | 200, 301, or other |
| Clarity for search engines | Explicit and unambiguous | Ambiguous and inferred |
| Crawl efficiency | Efficient | Wasteful |
| Indexing outcome | Clean removal | Inconsistent or delayed |
| SEO risk | Low when intentional | Higher if widespread |
Hard 404s are a clear signal. Soft 404s create uncertainty—and search engines dislike uncertainty.
Why Soft 404s Are a Problem for SEO
Soft 404s matter because they:
- Waste crawl budget
Search engines may continue crawling pages that should be gone. - Dilute site quality signals
Thin or empty pages can lower perceived overall quality. - Delay deindexing
Pages may linger in the index longer than they should. - Confuse relevance signals
Redirecting everything to the homepage muddies topical focus.
In large sites, such as ecommerce or publishers, soft 404s can quietly scale into thousands of low-quality URLs, creating technical debt that’s hard to diagnose later.
When to Use a 404, Redirect, or Something Else
Best practice depends on intent:
- Use a hard 404 or 410 when a page is permanently gone with no replacement
- Use a 301 redirect when there is a clear, relevant successor page
- Keep the page live if it still provides value (e.g. archived content)
The key is alignment: the user experience, content, and HTTP status should all tell the same story.
Why This Matters More Than Ever
As search engines increasingly evaluate site-wide quality, technical signals like correct status codes are foundational. A clean 404 strategy helps search engines trust your site, crawl it efficiently, and focus on pages that actually matter.
In short:
- Hard 404s are honest and healthy
- Soft 404s are ambiguous and costly
Getting this distinction right is a small technical detail, but one with outsized SEO impact.
