404 Errors in Google Search Console — Fix or Ignore?

Search Console will show 404s. Most of them do not deserve a redirect. Some of them are the reason a money URL died.

Ignore (usually)

• Random query strings and bot-invented paths.
• URLs that never existed on your site and have no impressions, no backlinks, no internal links.
• Old parameters from a tracking experiment you already canonicalized away.

Creating 301s from garbage to the homepage trains nothing useful and turns the homepage into a junk drawer.

Fix

• URLs that still get impressions or clicks. Restore or 301 to the nearest live equivalent.
• URLs with backlinks. 301, then request indexing on the destination. See do broken links affect SEO.
• URLs still in your nav, sitemap, or HTML. That is an on-site bug, not a GSC curiosity. GSC is late; the page scanner is now.

Soft 404

GSC’s “soft 404” means Google thinks the 200 page is empty or an error. Fix the template or return a real 404/410. Do not argue with the report by stuffing two paragraphs of lorem into a dead product URL.

Workflow

1. Export the 404 list from GSC.
2. Drop it into a sheet. Mark: ignore / restore / 301.
3. For anything you might 301, open the live site and confirm the link still exists in templates — scan the page or the whole site.
4. Deploy redirects at the host or CMS, not as a JavaScript location.href.
5. Recrawl the source page.

GSC is a rear-view mirror. Chrome on the current DOM is the windshield. Use both.