Soft 404 error for a big, longstanding 301-redirected page

[Eric_R]

Hi everyone,

Years ago, we acquired a website that had essentially 2 prominent homepages - one was like example.com and the other like example.com/htm... They served the same purpose basically, and were both very powerful, like PR7 and often had double listings for important search phrases in Google.  Both pages had amassed considerable powerful links to them.

About 4 years ago, we decided to 301 redirect the example.com/htm page to our homepage to clean up the user experience on our site and also, we hoped, to make one even stronger page in serps, rather than two less strong pages.

Suddenly, in the past couple weeks, this example.com/htm 301-ed page started appearing in our Google Search Console as a soft 404 error.  We've never had a soft 404 error before now.  I tried marking this as resolved, to see if the error would return or if it was just some kind of temporary blip.  The error did return.

So my questions are:
1. Why would this be happening after all this time?
2. Is this soft 404 error a signal from Google that we are no longer getting any benefit from link juice funneled to our existing homepage through the example.com/htm 301 redirect?

The example.com/htm page still has considerable (albeit old) links pointing to it across the web.  We're trying to make sense of this soft 404 observation and any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Eric

[GlobeRunner]

Eric, you're right that you should be 301 redirecting the old page to the new one using a 301 Permanent Redirect. If Google Search Console is showing you that they're getting a 404 error on that URL, then they're getting it--it's not that they're telling you you no longer are getting any benefit from the 301 redirect.

I would check the redirect to see if it's still working. Use a server header check tool, or I like Rex Swain's HTTP tool: http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html

Also, you should use Google's own Fetch and Render tool to make sure that they can reach the page and they don't get a 404 error: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6066468?rd=2

I have seen cases where we can get to a page or see the redirect but Google cannot. So you need to use the Fetch & Render to make sure Google isn't being blocked. I've see a case where users could get to the site but Google was being blocked and given a 404 error.