Google treats the page as a soft 404
gsc_soft_404Short answer
Search Console reports these URLs as "Soft 404". Google treats this page as a soft 404: it doesn't index it even though it returns 200. The page returns 200 but Google reads its content as "not found". If the content really exists, find out why it looks empty to Google; if it doesn't, return 404 or 410.
Why it matters
Google classifies a page as a soft 404 when the content looks like an error page or an empty result: "no products found", "0 results", a near-empty template, a redirect to an unrelated page, or main content that only appears after JavaScript that failed to render. Such a page is excluded from the index, and because the server said 200, nothing in your own monitoring notices.
How Glimana detects it
Glimana reads the index status from the Search Console connection and lists up to 500 URLs in the soft-404 state. Compare with Glimana's own Soft 404 page rule, which detects the pattern from the crawl before Google reports it.
How to fix it
- Find the affected pages in Glimana. Open Issues › Google treats the page as a soft 404. The row's evidence comes from the Search Console / Bing import: the URLs, the state Google reported and, where relevant, the clicks or impressions at stake. Sort by clicks and start with the pages that earn traffic.
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Apply the fix on your platform.
- Open the page as Googlebot. URL Inspection › Test live URL › View tested page. If the screenshot is empty or shows an error message, that is what Google sees.
- If the page is really empty (a category with no items, an expired listing), return 404 or 410, or redirect to the parent if the parent is a sensible replacement.
- If the content exists but is missing for Googlebot, the cause is usually JavaScript rendering (blocked resources, timeouts) or a bot-specific response. Server-render the main content and unblock JS/CSS in robots.txt.
- If the page is thin, add the content that would make it a real answer.
Empty category/tag archives and search-result pages; noindex them or give them content. Themes that show "Nothing found" with a 200 for unknown URLs should be fixed to return 404 (
status_header(404)).Collections with no products and sold-out product pages with the content hidden. Unpublish empty collections, and keep product content visible when sold out.
Return a real 404 for unknown IDs instead of rendering an empty template; make sure the error path does not return 200.
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Publish and clear caches. Publish or deploy and purge caches. For the URLs with the most clicks, open Search Console › URL Inspection and request indexing so Google re-evaluates them sooner than its normal schedule.
- Verify in Glimana. Open the task under Tasks and click Mark as done. The task closes when the URL leaves the soft-404 state in the next Search Console import, or when it returns 404/410/redirects. Glimana re-checks on each Search Console / Bing import; if the state has not changed the task returns to New with a note.
How the fix is verified
The task closes when the URL leaves the soft-404 state in the next Search Console import, or when it returns 404/410/redirects.