Google Search Console Error: Submitted URL seems to be a Soft 404

MikeJones

Since December 19th this error has been growing on my flarum... Its up to 30 pages now.

All 30 pages listed are all user pages on my flarum like: https://www.tendigitgrid.com/u/Bigsurgal

I visit them both signed in and not signed in and I don't get a 404 error, so I am not sure why this is popping up as an error in Google Search Console. Any ideas?

askvortsov

MikeJones According to Google, soft 404s are pages that return 200s, but google interprets as not being active enough to index. In particular, the following cases may be relevant:

If that's the actual cause (not sure if Google tells you why it's a soft 404), the best solution might be adding an option to exclude profiles with no posts from sitemap creation.

MikeJones

askvortsov Awesome thanks for your detailed reply. That makes sense why its happening now. I wonder if @FriendsOfFlarum could add this to a feature of the Sitemap plugin?

Or would there be a better place to implement this other than the sitemap?