Why SOFT404 ?

[WearYouWant]

This post is deleted!

[Devanur-Rafi]

Hi, first of all, the list of soft 404 errors that Google shows in webmaster tools account is not comprehensive. It also depends on the pages that throw an HTTP header status 200 for non-existing resources on the website get noticed by Google. For example, if someone tries to search for 'gorillaglass', the resulting URL from your domain will be,

http://www.wearyouwant.com/search.html?product=gorillaglass

If Google comes across this page (from your website or from else where on the Internet, just like this URL, http://www.wearyouwant.com/en/brand-lime-crime.html being mentioned on few places on the Internet) then there is a great chance of the above URL being reported as a Soft 404 error in webmaster tools account.

To fix the Soft 404 errors, you need to make those URLs throw an HTTP header status code, 404 and not 200.

Here you go for more: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.in/2010/06/crawl-errors-now-reports-soft-404s.html

Hope that helps my friend.

Best,

Devanur Rafi

[WearYouWant]

This post is deleted!

[Devanur-Rafi]

If a particular brand has no products currently, instead of showing a, 'product not found' message, you can have a description of the brand or something like, 'please checkout this space for products from xxx brand soon' etc. And also give an option for the visitor or some closely related product or category link on the same page. In this case, the HTTP header status can be a 200.

If you do not want the search engines or the visitors be confused with a brand shop that has no products and shows a, 'product not found' message, the HTTP header status code should be 404 and not 200 and at the same time should help the visitor by suggesting a close match so that he can further navigate the website.

Good luck friend.

Best,

Devanur Rafi