Glossary · Technical
Soft 404.
A page that does not exist but answers as though it does — most often by showing the home page with a success code instead of a “not found” error.
Why it matters.
It is a common misconfiguration on modern hosting, and it is quietly damaging: search engines index nonsense addresses, crawl budget is spent on pages that are not pages, and visitors following a broken link land somewhere confusing with no explanation. The fix is a real 404 page returning the correct code — something this site got wrong itself until we checked.
How to check it yourself.
Type your domain followed by a made-up page name. A correct site shows a "not found" page; a misconfigured one shows the home page and reports success, which is the fault this page describes.
Questions
Straight answers.
How do I check soft 404 on my own site?
Type your domain followed by a made-up page name. A correct site shows a "not found" page; a misconfigured one shows the home page and reports success, which is the fault this page describes.
Before you decide anything
Find out whether
you have a problem.
Most people asking about a rebuild do not need one. The free check opens your site, looks at how it behaves on a phone, whether it is secure and how old the page is, and tells you which of those apply to you.
Worth a
conversation?
No pitch deck and no discovery call. Tell us the trade and the city, and we will say what we would do and what it costs.