Detecting error despite HTTP 200

Example: Error message despite HTTP 200

This illustrative answer example shows the recognition. For your own URL test, a publicly available test page must provide exactly this answer; the example is not a live finding via example.org.

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: text/html

<html><head><title>Seite nicht gefunden</title></head><body><h1>Seite nicht gefunden</h1><p>Bitte prüfen Sie die Adresse.</p></body></html>

Expected result

The tool reports “Strong Soft 404 suspicion”: Title and H1 contain an error pattern, although the status is 200. For the same answer with status 404, the classification is “Real HTTP error”.

What the Example Does Not Prove

This is a heuristic, not a read-out Google indexing status. An empty search or short-term missing product list may look similar; check page purpose and, if necessary, a known error template.

A successful retrieval can still be an error page

A no longer existing page should usually deliver HTTP 404 or 410. If your CMS instead outputs HTTP 200 and an error text, a conflicting signal arises. The checker searches for error patterns in Title, H1 and content and, if desired, compares the main content template with an error page.

How to evaluate a suspicion

A strong suspicion arises only through several signals or a high text similarity together with the same HTML structure of a plausible error page. The word “404” in a guide is not enough for a certain finding. Empty search results, JavaScript pages, login barriers and protection pages must be judged manually.

What you can then change

• Defunct content: Deliver actual HTTP status 404 or 410.
• Appropriate replacement available: forwarded specifically to the appropriate successor.
• Content should remain: Correct error template, empty data source or server-side display.

Google describes the connection in Page indexing report. Then check affected URLs there too.

Frequent questions