Http Status Ok

TL;DR

There’s a technical or content issue reducing how well your page can be crawled, understood, or cited. Follow the steps below to diagnose the cause, apply the fix, and verify the result. Finish by running an Oversearch AI Page Optimizer scan.

Why this matters

Access and crawlability are prerequisites. If crawlers can’t fetch or parse your content, rankings and citations become unreliable, and LLMs may fail to extract answers.

Where this shows up in Oversearch

In Oversearch, open AI Page Optimizer and run a scan for the affected page. Then open Benchmark Breakdown to see evidence, and use the View guide link to jump back here when needed.

Why is my page showing as a soft 404?

A soft 404 occurs when a page returns HTTP 200 OK but the content says “not found,” “no results,” or is essentially empty. Google detects this mismatch and treats the page as a 404.

This is common on search result pages with zero results, filtered pages with no matching items, or pages where the main content failed to load. Google’s systems analyze the page content, not just the status code.

• Check Google Search Console → Pages → “Soft 404” filter.
• A page returning 200 with “No results found” will be flagged.
• Empty pages or placeholder pages are also treated as soft 404s.
• Fix by either returning a real 404 status code or adding meaningful content.

If you use Oversearch, open AI Page Optimizer → Benchmark Breakdown to check the HTTP status and content assessment.

How do I check the HTTP status of a URL?

Run curl -I <url> to see the HTTP response headers, including the status code.

The status code appears on the first line of the response: HTTP/1.1 200 OK, HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently, HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found, etc.

• curl -I https://example.com/page → shows status code and headers.
• curl -sL -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" <url> → prints just the status code.
• Check for redirect chains: curl -sLI <url> shows all redirects.
• Use browser DevTools → Network tab → click the request → Status column.

If you use Oversearch, open AI Page Optimizer → Benchmark Breakdown to see the detected status code.

Should a ‘not found’ page return 404 or 200?

A “not found” page must return HTTP 404 (or 410 for permanently removed content). Returning 200 for non-existent content creates a soft 404 and wastes crawl budget.

Search engines need accurate status codes to maintain a correct index. A 200 on a “not found” page tells crawlers the page is valid, so they keep re-crawling it and may even try to rank the error page.

• Pages that no longer exist → return 404.
• Pages permanently removed with no replacement → return 410.
• Pages moved to a new URL → return 301 redirect.
• Custom 404 pages should still return a 404 status code.

If you use Oversearch, open AI Page Optimizer → Benchmark Breakdown to verify status code accuracy.

Can a 200 page still be treated as ‘not found’ by Google?

Yes. Google uses content analysis to detect soft 404s — pages that return 200 but contain error messages, empty content, or boilerplate-only text.

This means you cannot trick Google by returning 200 on an error page. If the page content clearly indicates “nothing here,” Google will treat it as a 404 regardless of the status code.

• Thin or empty pages returning 200 may be flagged as soft 404.
• Pages with only navigation and no unique content may be flagged.
• Fix by adding real content or returning the correct 404/410 status.

If you use Oversearch, open AI Page Optimizer → Benchmark Breakdown to check for soft 404 detection.

Common root causes

• Template-level configuration mismatch or conflicting signals.

How to detect

• In Oversearch AI Page Optimizer, open the scan for this URL and review the Benchmark Breakdown evidence.
• Verify the signal outside Oversearch with at least one method: fetch the HTML with curl -L, check response headers, or use a crawler/URL inspection.
• Confirm you’re testing the exact canonical URL (final URL after redirects), not a variant.
• Confirm HTTP status codes and whether the content is substantial (thin/empty templates often trigger soft-404 classification).

How to fix

Start by checking the actual status code (see: How do I check the HTTP status of a URL?) and whether Google flags the page as a soft 404 (see: Why is my page showing as a soft 404?). Then follow the steps below.

1. Apply the fix recommended by your scan and validate with Oversearch.

Verify the fix

• Run an Oversearch AI Page Optimizer scan for the same URL and confirm the benchmark is now passing.
• Confirm the page is 200 OK and the primary content is present in initial HTML.
• Validate with an external tool (crawler, URL inspection, Lighthouse) to avoid false positives.

Prevention

• Add automated checks for robots/noindex/canonical on deploy.
• Keep a single, documented preferred URL policy (host/protocol/trailing slash).
• After releases, spot-check Oversearch AI Page Optimizer on critical templates.

FAQ

What status should redirected pages return?

Permanent moves should return 301. Temporary redirects should return 302 or 307. Avoid redirect chains (multiple hops). The final destination should return 200. When in doubt, use 301 for permanent URL changes.

How do I fix 404s caused by trailing slash or case sensitivity?

Configure your server to redirect one format to the other with a 301. Most web servers are case-sensitive by default — set up redirect rules to normalize casing. When in doubt, redirect all uppercase URLs to lowercase and pick one trailing-slash policy.

Should custom error pages return 200 or 404 status?

Custom 404 pages must still return HTTP 404 status code. A styled error page that returns 200 is a soft 404 and confuses crawlers. When in doubt, verify the status code with curl -I, not by how the page looks in a browser.

Can server errors (500) affect my search rankings?

Frequent 500 errors signal an unreliable site. Google may reduce crawl rate and eventually drop pages that consistently return server errors. When in doubt, monitor server error rates and set up alerts for 5xx spikes.

How do I find all pages returning wrong status codes?

Crawl your site with a tool like Screaming Frog or Sitebulb and filter by status code. Check Google Search Console Coverage report for soft 404s and server errors. When in doubt, start with the pages Google flags in Search Console.

What is the difference between 404 and 410 status codes?

404 means ‘not found’ (may return later). 410 means ‘permanently gone’ (will not return). Google removes 410 pages from the index faster. When in doubt, use 410 for content you have intentionally deleted and 404 for everything else.