Fix "Soft 404" errors and get the page indexed

A soft 404 is Google's way of saying "this page returns a 200 OK status, but it looks like a 'not found' or empty page to me, so I'm treating it as an error." The HTTP status says success; the content says failure. Google sides with the content and won't index it.

What triggers a soft 404

• Empty or near-empty pages: an out-of-stock product with no description, a category with zero items, a search results page with no results.
• Pages that literally say "not found," "no results," or "this item is no longer available" while still returning 200.
• Thin content: a page with a heading and one sentence that Google judges has no real value.
• JavaScript pages that render their content client-side but serve an empty shell to the crawler.
• Placeholder or coming-soon pages that haven't been filled in yet.

Decide what the page should be

Soft 404s split into two cases. Either the page should exist and have content (fix the content), or it shouldn't exist (return a real 404/410 or redirect). Sending the right signal is the whole fix.

1. Page should exist: add substantive, unique content — real product details, actual listings, a proper article. Then push it through the Indexing API.
2. Page is genuinely gone: return a real 404 or 410 status so Google drops it cleanly, instead of a 200 that confuses the crawler.
3. Page moved: 301-redirect it to the relevant replacement URL.
4. Empty-but-temporary (out of stock): keep the page, add related items and a restock note so it isn't a dead end.

Confirm the fix

After adding content (or returning the correct status), run the URL through a status check. A page that was a soft 404 should move to "URL is on Google" once it has real content and gets re-crawled. Push it through the Indexing API to bring that re-crawl forward.