Find and fix soft 404 pages

Prompt that finds pages without real content that still answer with status 200 and decides what to do. Paste it into an AI tool of your choice, which then sorts the soft 404 pages.

Topic: SEO & website copy
Type: Prompt
Level: Intermediate
Time: about 15 min

Results depend on the tool, the model and what you enter.

Result preview

Example: written by our editors, not real AI output.

| Group | Cause | Decision | Target | | /shop/sold-out/* | no stock, empty page | 301 | successor model | | /search?q=* | empty results | noindex | – | | /tag/old-* | no posts | 410 | – | Rule: categories without products answer with 404 until filled.

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PagesWhich pages are affected?

SourceWhere does the list come from?

SiteWhat kind of website?

Your prompt

Help me find and fix soft 404 pages.
Pages: [Pages]
Source: [Source]
Site: [Site]
Approach: 1. Name the signs of a soft 404 in the material: error text with status 200, empty search or category pages, sold-out items without content. 2. Sort the pages into groups by cause. 3. Decide per group: answer with a real 404 or 410, redirect to a close match, or add useful content. 4. For redirects, check that the target really answers the same need; otherwise prefer a real error page. 5. Describe how the error page should look so visitors still find their way. 6. Propose a rule that prevents new soft 404 pages, for example for empty filters.
Output: table of page groups with cause, decision and target, plus a rule for the future.

Take particular care to give every page an honest status code and redirect only to real matches.

Before you answer, check: Are all instructions met? If key information is missing or a placeholder in square brackets is still in the text, ask instead of guessing. Mark assumptions as assumptions.

Help me find and fix soft 404 pages.
Pages: [Pages]
Source: [Source]
Site: [Site]
Approach: 1. Name the signs of a soft 404 in the material: error text with status 200, empty search or category pages, sold-out items without content. 2. Sort the pages into groups by cause. 3. Decide per group: answer with a real 404 or 410, redirect to a close match, or add useful content. 4. For redirects, check that the target really answers the same need; otherwise prefer a real error page. 5. Describe how the error page should look so visitors still find their way. 6. Propose a rule that prevents new soft 404 pages, for example for empty filters.
Output: table of page groups with cause, decision and target, plus a rule for the future.

Take particular care to give every page an honest status code and redirect only to real matches.

Before you answer, check: Are all instructions met? If key information is missing or a placeholder in square brackets is still in the text, ask instead of guessing. Mark assumptions as assumptions.

This is an instruction for an AI, not the result itself.

Where this prompt works

These AI tools are a good fit for this prompt:

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How to use it

Fill in the fields or tap a suggestion. Leave out names, addresses and other personal data.
Copy the finished prompt into an AI tool of your choice.
Paste the addresses with their status code and a short note about what the page shows.

Why does this work?

Search engines treat pages with no real content as errors, whatever the status code says. Clear status codes and honest redirects save crawl budget and visitor time.

Tips

Do not redirect everything to the home page; that is usually treated like a soft 404 as well.

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Find and fix soft 404 pages

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