How I Fix Soft 404 Errors in Google Search Console (My Technical SEO Workflow)

During one of my recent SEO audits, I noticed something strange inside Google Search Console. Several pages were loading perfectly. No broken layout. No error message. No server issues. From a user's perspective, everything worked. But Google was still flagging those pages as Soft 404 . That moment taught me something important about technical SEO: a page can exist technically, yet still send signals that make search engines question its value. And that is exactly what creates a soft 404 classification. What a Soft 404 Actually Means A soft 404 error happens when a webpage returns a 200 OK HTTP status code , but Google's systems believe the page behaves like a missing or low-value page. In simple terms: The server says the page exists. Google thinks the page looks empty or misleading. When those signals conflict, Google flags the page as Soft 404 . You will usually see this report in: Google Search Console → Indexing → Pages → Soft 404 What makes the issue confusing is that the page of