Today’s Spotlight: In-Depth Look: Google: Soft 404s Use Crawl Budget Despite 200 OK Status

Google’s Gary Illyes has clarified how soft 404 errors impact crawl budget, offering unique insight during Search Central Live Asia Pacific 2025.

While it was previously understood that standard 4XX errors don’t consume crawl budget, a LinkedIn post from Kenichi Suzuki reveals a critical nuance: soft 404s do.

The Problem With Soft 404s

Unlike standard 404 pages, soft 404s return a 200 OK status while showing messaging like “page not found” or “this product is no longer available.”

That means the server reports a successful response, but the page content tells a different story.

Illyes explained that Google uses content analysis to identify these inconsistencies.

If it detects patterns that signal a missing or low-value page, it flags the URL as a soft 404, even though the HTTP response code suggests the page is fine.

And unlike true 404s, these pages consume crawl budget without offering any value in return.

For larger sites, that can lead to slower discovery of valuable content and inefficient use of crawl resources.

How To Identify Soft 404s

Google Search Console includes a dedicated report under the Index Coverage section to help you find soft 404s.

Some common causes include:

• Product pages that say “out of stock” but return a 200 OK
• Empty search result or category pages
• Expired event listings
• Deleted user profiles

These types of pages can slip through technical checks because they return a valid status code but offer little or no value to search engines.

Preventing Crawl Waste

To avoid having these pages consume crawl budget:

• Return a 404 or 410 status for content that no longer exists.
• Use 301 redirects when content has been permanently moved.
• Consider structured data for out-of-stock notices instead of showing empty product pages.
• Design helpful 404 pages that assist users and signal content is unavailable.

Final Thoughts

Soft 404s may look harmless on the surface, but they have technical consequences. By misaligning what your server says with what your page shows, they create inefficiencies that slow down crawling and reduce visibility.

For any site struggling with crawl performance, soft 404s are now a priority for review.