Google Search Console will help us!
First of all, we recommend using the Google Search Console tool. This free tool should become a good friend to anyone who deals with website administration. Among the information provided by Google Search Console are also those reporting on the occurrence of errors 404 and false errors 404 in the context of the analyzed website. It is worth noting here that not every page will have a report on the occurrence of errors 404 and false errors 404 - it may simply not have this problem. For the sake of order, let's explain what a false error 404 is and what distinguishes it from a "classic" error 404.
Google Search Console Help defines a soft 404 error as follows:
A soft 404 error means that your website URL is taking the user to a page that doesn't exist. The user sees a message and the browser receives a status code of 200 (success). In some cases, instead of a message page, you might see a page with little or no useful content - for example, blank or almost blank.
For pages with a false 404 error, Google recommends 3 actions:
if a subpage is not available and is replaced by another subpage, it should have clear information that it does not exist (using the code 404 - "not found" or 410 - "none"),
if the page has been moved or replaced by a new one, the correct action is to set a permanent redirect, i.e. 301,
if the page should not be marked as a fake 404 according to the administrator, then you should use the URL inspection tool to test the rendered content and the returned code. It may turn out that some resources on a given subpage cannot be loaded and this causes the subpage to be associated with a fake 404 error. Then the solution will be to make corrections to this subpage, thanks to which its content will be fully accessible and will not return a message about the error.
Catching subpages with 404 and soft 404 errors using Google Search Console is easy - just use this tool. Information about them can be found in the STATUS section in Google Search Console, check the "Excluded" section.
Index Status in Google Search Console
You can check for invalid addresses in the Status tab in the Google Search Console.
The error message itself also contains information on viber database how many subpages are affected by the problem - see screenshot below.
GSC message about a 404 soft error and page not found (404)
The GSC report will tell us, among other things, what problems were detected and how many pages they affect.
We recommend regularly reviewing the content of the Google Search Console for the occurrence of 404 and false 404 errors. It is important to remember that cleaning up this section does not work “once and for all”. Over time, Google will detect new subpages with these errors (if the site has them, of course) and display messages about them in the Google Search Console panel. When information about subpages with these errors appears, you should:
in the case of subpages with a 404 error, perform a 301 redirection to a working subpage with a similar theme or offer within our website, to a category subpage or to the home page - in short: transfer the person visiting our website to a place where they can still find something interesting from our company's offer;
In the case of subpages with a false 404 error, use one of the 3 strategies described above.
You can also get into the habit of doing a 301 redirect when there are changes to your offer that mean removing a product or service from your offer, without waiting for a message from Google Search Console about detecting an error. It is also worth emphasizing that it is better to use a permanent 301 redirect than a temporary 302.
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Does a 404 error affect rankings?
Answering this question requires taking into account how many subpages with 404 errors we are dealing with in the case of a specific website and how this number compares to the total number of subpages. If the subpages with 404 errors are a distinct minority in the context of the entire website, then there is no major cause for concern. Even pages with excellent positions have their 404 errors.
Google itself also has its own ready-made information board about the 404 error, so we can assume that it treats the fact of the existence of "four hundred fours" naturally (if we assume that such a term fits something from the Internet space).
If a given website has relatively many subpages with 404 errors, then it may be rated worse by Google's web robots.
