404
4xxSEO: negativeRFC 9110
HTTP 404 Not Found
The requested resource does not exist. Googlebot will deindex pages returning genuine 404s.
Indexable by Google
No
Link equity passed
No
SEO Impact
Negative
Category
4XX
SEO Impact
404 is the most common error Google encounters. Genuine 404s (pages that never existed or are permanently gone) are acceptable and Google will eventually drop them from the index. The SEO concern is: (1) "Soft 404s" — pages that return 200 but display "not found" content confuse Google; (2) Pages that used to exist and have inbound links should 301 redirect rather than 404; (3) A sudden spike in 404s in Search Console signals a site migration issue or broken URL structure. Monitor via Search Console Coverage report.
When to Use 404
When a resource genuinely does not exist and never will. For permanent URL removal, pair with 410 Gone.
HTTP Response Example
HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found Content-Type: text/html
Test with cURL
$ curl -I https://example.com/page-that-doesnt-exist
Test this in your browser
Check how HTTP 404 responses affect your actual URLs