Official statement
If a page shows 'no results found' at the top of the HTML (even if hidden by CSS), Google may interpret it as an empty page and generate a soft 404 error. This text should only appear during a real search, not in the default source code of product pages.
Other statements from this video 13 ▾
- □ Why does Google take time to update URLs after migrating from AMP?
- □ Why does Google change your title tags without warning?
- □ Why are banners often preferred over intrusive interstitials in SEO?
- □ Is it true that Google's recent soft 404 adjustments could change your technical SEO game?
- □ Is it necessary to change domains after removing a large amount of content?
- □ Why does Google Images struggle with multilingual content?
- □ Should you be worried about multilingual text in SEO?
- □ Why do URLs with or without a trailing slash matter so much in SEO?
- □ What could be causing your new pages to take so long to get indexed?
- □ Why Doesn't Google Index All of Your Pages?
- □ Why does Google enforce strict rules on geo-blocking and crawling?
- □ Why doesn't Google diminish the power of generic keywords across all pages?
- □ How can you optimize your crawl budget for expired auction pages?
Official statement from
(5 years ago)
⚠ A more recent statement exists on this topic
How does Google actually identify soft 404s?
View statement →
TL;DR
Google might consider a page displaying 'no results' as empty, resulting in a soft 404 error. Display this text only during actual searches, not in the source code by default.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
Comment Google identifie-t-il une erreur soft 404 ?
Google détecte une page comme soft 404 si elle semble vide ou non pertinente pour l'utilisateur.
Que faire si mon site affiche par erreur des 'aucun résultat' ?
Reconfigurez votre site pour n'afficher ce message que lors de recherches concrètes, et non dans le HTML par défaut.
Les soft 404 affectent-ils le classement de mon site ?
Oui, ils peuvent nuire à l'indexation et au classement car ils signalent des pages comme non utiles.
🎥 From the same video 13
Other SEO insights extracted from this same Google Search Central video · published on 20/08/2021
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