Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Are there ways to avoid false positive "soft 404s" by Google
-
Sometimes I get alerts from Google Search Console that it has detected soft 404s on different websites, and since I take great care to never have true soft 404s, they are always false positives.
Today I got one on a website that has pages promoting some events. The language on the page for one event that has sold out says that "tickets are no longer available" which seems to have tripped up Google into thinking the page is a soft 404.
It's kind of incredible to me that in the current era we're in, with things like chatGPT that Google doesn't seem to understand natural language. But that has me thinking, are there some strategies or best practices we can use in how we write copy on the page so Google doesn't flag it as soft 404? It seems like anything that could tell a user that an item isn't available could trip it up into thinking it is a 404. In the case of my page, it's actually important information we need to tell the public that an event has sold out, but to use their interest in that event to promote other events. so I don't want the page deindexed or not to rank well!
-
@IrvCo_Interactive Google's algorithms are not perfect and sometimes can misinterpret the content on a page.
In terms of strategies or best practices for writing copy on a page to avoid triggering a soft 404, one approach is to ensure that the content is unique, relevant, and provides value to the user. Make sure that the page contains substantial content that gives context and information about the event, even if it is sold out. This can include details about past events, photos, videos, or testimonials from attendees.
You can also consider using structured data markup to explicitly indicate that the event is sold out, which can help Google better understand the page's content. This can be done using the "eventStatus" property in the Schema.org markup.
Another approach is to use clear and specific language when describing the event's availability. Instead of using phrases like "no longer available," consider using language like "this event is sold out" or "tickets for this event are no longer available." This can help make it clear to both users and search engines that the page is not a soft 404.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Best practices for retiring 100s of blog posts?
Hi. I wanted to get best practices for retiring an enterprise blog with hundreds of old posts with subject matter that won't be repurposed. What would be the best course of action to retire and maintain the value of any SEO authority from those old blog pages? Is it enough to move those old posts into an archive subdirectory and Google would deprioritize those posts over time? Or would a mass redirect of old blog posts to the new blog's home page be allowed (even though the old blog post content isn't being specifically replaced)? Or would Google basically say that if there aren't 1:1 replacement URLs, that would be seen as soft-404s and treated like a 404?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | David_Fisher0 -
Page with "random" content
Hi, I'm creating a page of 300+ in the near future, on which the content basicly will be unique as it can be. However, upon every refresh, also coming from a search engine refferer, i want the actual content such as listing 12 business to be displayed random upon every hit. So basicly we got 300+ nearby pages with unique content, and the overview of those "listings" as i might say, are being displayed randomly. Ive build an extensive script and i disabled any caching for PHP files in specific these pages, it works. But what about google? The content of the pages will still be as it is, it is more of the listings that are shuffled randomly to give every business listing a fair shot at a click and so on. Anyone experience with this? Ive tried a few things in the past, like a "Last update PHP Month" in the title which sometimes is'nt picked up very well.
Technical SEO | | Vanderlindemedia0 -
"Noindex, follow" for thin pages?
Hey there Mozzers, I have a question regarding Thin pages. Unfortunately, we have Thin pages, almost empty to be honest. I have the idea to ask the dev team to do "noindex, follow" on these pages. What do you think? Has someone faced this situation before? Will appreciate your input!
Technical SEO | | Europarl_SEO_Team0 -
SEO advice on ecommerce url structure where categories contain "/c/"
Hi! We use Hybris as plattform and I would like input on which url to choose. We must keep "/c/" before the actual category. c stands for category. I.e. this current url format will be shortened and cleaned:
Technical SEO | | hampgunn
https://www.granngarden.se/Sortiment/Husdjur/Hund/Hundfoder-%26-Hundmat/c/hundfoder To either: a.
https://www.granngarden.se/husdjur/hund/hundfoder/c/hundfoder b.
https://www.granngarden.se/husdjur/hund/c/hundfoder (hundfoder means dogfood) The question is whether we should keep the duplicated category name (hundfoder) before the "/c/" or not. Will there be SEO disadvantages by removing the duplicate "hundfoder" before the "/c/"? I prefer the shorter version ofc, but do not want to jeopardize any SEO rankings or send confusing signals to search engines or customers due to the "/c/" breaking up the url breadcrumb. What do you guys say and prefer from the above alternatives? Thanks /Hampus0 -
Does my "spam" site affect my other sites on the same IP?
I have a link directory called Liberty Resource Directory. It's the main site on my dedicated IP, all my other sites are Addon domains on top of it. While exploring the new MOZ spam ranking I saw that LRD (Liberty Resource Directory) has a spam score of 9/17 and that Google penalizes 71% of sites with a similar score. Fair enough, thin content, bunch of follow links (there's over 2,000 links by now), no problem. That site isn't for Google, it's for me. Question, does that site (and linking to my own sites on it) negatively affect my other sites on the same IP? If so, by how much? Does a simple noindex fix that potential issues? Bonus: How does one go about going through hundreds of pages with thousands of links, built with raw, plain text HTML to change things to nofollow? =/
Technical SEO | | eglove0 -
Use webmaster tools "change of address" when doing rel=canonical
We are doing a "soft migration" of a website. (Actually it is a merger of two websites). We are doing cross site rel=canonical tags instead of 301's for the first 60-90 days. These have been done on a page by page basis for an entire site. Google states that a "change of address" should be done in webmaster tools for a site migration with 301's. Should this also be done when we are doing this soft move?
Technical SEO | | EugeneF0 -
How valuable is content "hidden" behind a JavaScript dropdown really?
I've come across a method implemented by some SEO agencies to fill up pages with somehow relevant text and hide it behind a javascript dropdown. Does Google fall for such cheap tricks? You can see this method used on these pages for example (just scroll down to the bottom) - it's all in German, but you get the idea I guess: http://www.insider-boersenbrief.de/ http://www.deko-und-kerzenshop.de/ How is you experience with this way of adding content to a site? Do you think it is valuable or will it get penalised?
Technical SEO | | jfkorn0 -
Meta tag "noindex,nofollow" by accident
Hi, 3 weeks ago I wanted to release a new website (made in WordPress), so I neatly created 301 redirects for all files and folders of my old html website and transferred the WordPress site into the index folder. Job well done I thought, but after a few days, my site suddenly disappeared from google. I read in other Q&A's that this could happen so I waited a little longer till I finally saw today that there was a meta robots added on every page with "noindex, nofollow". For some reason, the WordPress setting "I want to forbid search engines, but allow normal visitors to my website" was selected, although I never even opened that section called "Privacy". So my question is, will this have a negative impact on my pagerank afterwards? Thanks, Sven
Technical SEO | | Zitana0