Difference between 404 and soft 404 error

[vikas_patel]

Difference between 404 and soft 404 error?

[rajivdevkk]

There are some difference between 404 and soft 404 error. The page is not found, it's called 404. when page is not found and the page not related with that page is called 404 soft.

day picnic around delhi (http://www.arounddelhi.net/?page_id=203) | picnic spots in gurgaon (http://www.conventionindia.in/Daysout.aspx)

[RH-Calvin]

404 Not Found is an error code which states that the requested resource could not be found but may be available again in the future. Subsequent requests by the client are permissible. A soft 404 means that the server did return a page but it looks like it couldn't find anything. Imagine a portal with a page for a house for sale. The house gets sold and that page now becomes: "This house has now been sold". This would become a soft 404 error if it remained in the sitemap.xml or there were links to it from other pages.

[GeethaN]

A 404 error happens when a page is not available and the server sends the correct HTTP status code — a 404 Not Found — to the browser telling the page is nowhere to be found. A soft 404 error happens when the server sends a 200 OK status for the requested page, but Google thinks that the page should return a 404.

[jayam]

A 404 error happens when a page is not available and the server sends the correct HTTP status code — a 404 Not Found — to the browser telling the page is nowhere to be found. A soft 404 error happens when the server sends a 200 OK status for the requested page, but Google thinks that the page should return a 404.

[jayammrg]

A soft 404 is a URL that returns a page telling the user that the page does not exist and also a 200-level (success) code. In some cases, it might be a page with little or no content--for example, a sparsely populated or empty page.

[chandrao7]

Double-check on URL level

You can double-check this by going to Coverage > Soft 404 and inspect one of the URLs listed, then under Crawl it'll say “Failed: Soft 404” for the field Page fetch

[makoo]

A 404 error happens when a page is not available and the server sends the correct HTTP status code — a 404 Not Found — to the browser telling the page is nowhere to be found. A soft 404 error happens when the server sends a 200 OK status for the requested page, but Google thinks that the page should return a 404.

[nicksavoia]

When we a webpage from the site, it shows 404 errors while accessing it.