Difference between 404 Error and soft 404 Error?

404 error is an HTTP status code that indicates that the requested web page or resource cannot be found on the server. It usually occurs when a user tries to access a page that has been deleted, moved or renamed.

On the other hand, a soft 404 error occurs when a server returns a 200 OK status code instead of a 404 error code for a page that does not exist. This can happen when a website's server does not properly return a 404 error code, and instead serves up a page that looks like a 404 error

Custom 404 error pages are a good way to provide a user experience, but often the impact on search engines is not noticed in the application process, such as incorrect server-side configuration resulting in a "200" status code return or Meta Refresh resulting in a "302" status code return for a custom 404 error page. A custom 404 error page that is properly set up should not only display correctly, but also return a "404" error code instead of "200" or "302." While it makes no difference to the

A 404 error is an HTTP status code that indicates that the requested web page or resource cannot be found on the server. It usually occurs when a user tries to access a page that has been deleted, moved or renamed.

On the other hand, a soft 404 error occurs when a server returns a 200 OK status code instead of a 404 error code for a page that does not exist. This can happen when a website's server does not properly return a 404 error code, and instead serves up a page that looks like a 404 erro

The primary difference between a “404 Not Found” error and a soft 404 error is the status code. The former has a status code of 404 or 410, which implies that the page cannot be found. With a soft 404 error, the page is still not found. But instead of returning the 404 or 410 code, a “200 OK” code is returned