Soft 404 error, or false error, happens only in Google search engines. It is not an official code of the server, it is just a marking, so to speak, “for yourself”. The error occurs when the page does not exist, but the server returns a 200 OK response code.

There can be several reasons for this phenomenon:

There is no or very little content on the page. Also the reason may be the presence of resources (images, scripts), which can not be processed by a search robot. For example, because of the fact that in Robots.txt to them is closed access, or scanning resources will take more time than necessary.
From the remote page is redirected to a page that is not relevant to the content.
The server is not working properly: a different code is returned for pages that do not exist.

If a 200 OK response is returned from the server, the page will be crawled and may appear in the search results list. Consequently, the error misleads users and search engines. Soft error 404 negatively affects the site’s ranking in the output and uses the resource of the crawler in vain.

3 ways to check the HTTP code of the server

With the help of a browser.
In Google Chrome without third-party tools, you can check the page response code. To do this, you need to:

• go to the website page;
• press F12 on your keyboard or right-click anywhere on the screen;
• select “check code” or “inspect”;
• go to the “Network” tab and refresh the page (F5);
• in the “Status” column you will see a list of status codes for all resources that are loaded at this address (documents, images, etc.).

Using https://httpstatus.io/.
Here you can check the status code of the requested URL. You can scan up to 100 URLs.

Using the Redirect Path extension for Chrome.
Google Chrome offers to install a free plugin that shows 301, 302, 404 and 500 HTTP codes and JavaScript redirects.

A 404 error is a client-side problem that indicates that the requested URL cannot be found on the server. This means that the browser has connected and sent a request to the web server, but the latter cannot find the requested resource. As a result, the browser cannot load the web page and shows the user a 404 error.

The problem can occur due to the following reasons:

• A relocated or deleted page. Sometimes the content of the page may be deleted or moved without fixing the broken link.
• URL entered in error. The link to the page in the browser address bar is entered incorrectly. In other words, you are using the wrong URL to access the page.
• A problem with your DNS settings. Either the domain is still propagating or it is pointing to the wrong DNS address.
• Cache problems. The browser may be displaying a 404 error instead of the actual page content through an un-cleared cache. Thus, you continue to see the error even though the website is working for all other users.
• WordPress CMS Settings Failure. Since in WordPress, links are formed according to a template, a failure in the settings can cause a 404 error on all pages of the same structure.

The 404 error does not have a direct negative impact on SEO. For instance, it is quite normal in Google Directory. However, it is important to note that it depends on the cause of the error.

For example, if a user enters a URL incorrectly and sees a 404 error – it will not interfere with search engine optimization and website promotion. However, if you have errors due to broken or deleted URLs, this hinders Google’s ability to properly crawl your site and thus has a negative effect on SEO.

In addition, if a persistent link problem results in a 404 error across your entire site, Google will not be able to scan any content on your site. The presence of a large number of 404 errors also affects the ranking of your website in search engines: algorithms will perceive your resource as low-quality or unreliable. Therefore, you may lose a large amount of traffic, as well as potential customers.

404 error means that there is no page with this URL on the server. Most often this happens when a page has been deleted or moved to another address, but the old link remains somewhere. Also, the visitor could enter the address with a typo – accidentally or on purpose to see the design of the 404 page.

It also happens that the 404 error occurs on all pages of the site on WordPress at once. In this case, the reason is usually in the structure of permanent links. In WordPress, links have a template structure, which the owner chooses in the settings. Sometimes there is a failure in these settings, due to which a 404 Not Found error occurs when going to any page.

How 404 error affects the performance of the website

The 404 error is simply a way to report that there is no page with this address on the server, there is nothing wrong with it. It’s bad if the error occurs because it’s not the site visitor who made the mistake, but the owner. For example, changed the address of the page and did not set up redirection from the old URL to the new one.

First, the site will lose some traffic, because over time, search engine robots will remove the old page, and the new one will need time to gain positions. And it is not a fact that it will take the same place. Keywords in the text, internal and external links, as well as other ranking factors should be at least as good.

Second, instead of pages with useful content search bots will scan the page with a 404 error. This is bad because each site has its own quota of pages visited by these bots – crawling budget. If the site will have a lot of 404 pages, the search robot may begin to scan them less often, because of which you will have to wait longer for the effect of optimization. More on this topic – in the article: How the Google search robot works.

Third, a 404 error can temporarily slow down your site if you have changed the address of the page, have not yet set up a redirect, and for the old page is running an advertising campaign. Pages with errors are usually not cached, so the server will spend more resources to load it. Especially if you changed its design and now the page has more content: similar products, other articles or animations.