Google told us numerous times that 404 pages to remove bad links - no really, numerous times.
But what about soft 404 pages? Pages that appear to be 404 pages but return a status code of 200 OK instead of the right 404 status code?
Google's Gary Illyes said on Twitter that soft 404s are treated the same as real 404s even with links.
(Q) You say that Google ignores Links leading to 404 pages. Are Soft-404 treated in the same fashion?
(A) Yes, they are. Generally, with a few exceptions, if a page is not indexed, its links are ignored too.
@SEO_Portal yes, they are. Generally, with a few exceptions, if a page is not indexed, its links are ignored too.
— Gary Illyes (@methode) August 10, 2015I believe this topic was brought up again because of our coverage of 404 pages not leading to a Google penalty, where I reference how Google handles links on 404 pages or links pointing to 404 pages.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
