HTTP Status Codes

What it means

HTTP status codes are the language servers use to report what happened to a request. For SEO, the most consequential codes are: 200 (OK — page returned normally), 301 (Moved Permanently — new URL, link equity transfers), 302 (Found — temporary redirect, old URL stays indexed), 404 (Not Found — page doesn't exist), and 5xx errors (server failures). Each signals different behavior to crawlers.

301 redirects are the primary tool for preserving link equity when URLs change. A 301 tells Google the move is permanent and transfers most link equity from the old URL to the new one. 302 redirects preserve the old URL in Google's index — appropriate for genuinely temporary moves, but damaging if used for permanent URL changes where link equity should consolidate.

Soft 404s are a common and often-invisible technical SEO problem. A soft 404 is a page that returns a 200 status code (suggesting everything is fine) but displays an empty, error-like, or thin-content response. Google treats them as low-value content, not as real pages. They accumulate silently on ecommerce sites (deleted products), search results pages mistakenly indexed, and empty category pages.

Key takeaways

• 301 (permanent) should be used for all permanent URL changes — 302 (temporary) is rarely appropriate
• Soft 404s return 200 status but deliver empty or error-like content — Google treats them as low-value
• 5xx errors during Googlebot visits result in crawl failures logged in Search Console
• Redirecting to irrelevant pages (e.g., all 404s → homepage) is treated as a soft 404