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There is a critical bug in your theme.
You have a search icon in site header with a link: <a href=”?s=” data-avia-search-tooltip=…
“?s=” link is an issue, Google tries to follow this link and produces many Soft 404 error codes.
Please rewrite it so there is no search parameter in href attribute.
And actually, the original WordPress form uses <form> with input field for “s” parameter, which is a correct design.
Hi CompleteWebResources!
That is not a bug actually it is the way we have developer for the functions to work.
What you can do, is block the ?s= results from google ( and actually google should not scan search at all ).Let us know how to do it, or need assistance
Best regards,
BasilisHello,
Yes, we know this joke: This is not a bug, this is a feature!
Why this has to be fixed:
1. Soft 404 error code is when page is empty/without content and there is no “HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found” header.
Link: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/181708?hl=en
According to Google, this is not correct, Google treats those pages with ?s= parameters as empty pages and there is no 404 status in header.
Quote:
We recommend that you always return a 404 (Not found) or a 410 (Gone) response code in response to a request…2. This may have impact on indexation.
Quote:
Because of the time Googlebot spends on non-existent pages, your unique URLs may not be discovered as quickly or visited as frequently and your site’s crawl coverage may be impacted (also, you probably don’t want your site to rank well for the search query [File not found]).Your proposal to block ?s= results are not correct. Theme should work fine out of the box in default installation. Your clients should not spend additional time on fixing your issues.
I received a similar email from Google Search Console regarding ‘Increase in “soft-404” pages.’
I would like to know how to fix this.
Hi,
It’s possible to disallow any url with the search (?s=key) query.
// https://kriesi.at/support/topic/gwt-problems-indexing-enfold-soft-404-with-search-activated-s
Best regards,
Ismael>>> It’s possible to disallow any url with the search (?s=key) query.
Already wrote about this, see previous message:
Your proposal to block ?s= results are not correct. Theme should work fine out of the box in default installation. Your clients should not spend additional time on fixing your own issues.
In other words, you have a bug, rejecting to fix, and proposing unprofessional workaround.
This is not a good practice for commercial product.
Hi,
Thank you for your kind words, we do appreciate them a lot.
There are people who actually want to get their search results to google and there are ways, where a search archive can help boost your results, so we can not performa that action from our side we are afraid.Thank you for your understanding.
Best regards,
BasilisHello,
>>> There are people who actually want to get their search results to google and there are ways, where a search archive can help boost your results
1. Please explain your words: “get their search results to google” and “where a search archive can help boost your results”,
How is that possible? Google says that there is a Soft 404 error code, means it may not crawl those pages, and very likely will not index. What’s the benefit if pages are not available to Google?
2. Also, our opinion is that this may not be good, because (a) Google is eliminating duplicate content, (b) most sites have categories/tag archives which are similar to search results (c) all such search results page are similar and may be skipped by search engines.
3. How many people want to have such design? Let’s assume 1%, then all other customers, 99%, should not have a bug if someone else need very specific feature.
People who want such feature should manually implement it on their sites.
Best regards,
Hi,
it’s not a theme related question you’re asking, so we encourage you to ask general WP support instead about this. If you have a question about Enfold or any other Kriesi Theme, we’re happy to assist you.
Best regards,
AndyHi Andy and Basilis,
I don’t understand the response to…
href=”?s=” data-avia-search-tooltip
it’s not a theme related question – Andy
Enfold is causing soft 404 errors. How is it not a theme related question? My non-Enfold WP websites don’t produce this error so how is this a general WP Support issue?
get their search results to google – Basilis
This makes no sense. As CompleteWebResources said, these error pages are not indexed. How does this help?
You either need to explain how this Enfold feature is beneficial in Google Webmaster / Search / Duplicate Content or explain how to eliminate this error.
Again: if you want to get rid of the search results in Google, then refer to this link: https://kriesi.at/support/topic/gwt-problems-indexing-enfold-soft-404-with-search-activated-s
Most people want their search results appearing in Google, but if you don’t, then simply follow the link.
I’m going to close this thread now.
Best regards,
Andy
- The topic ‘Search Icon causes Soft 404 Errors’ is closed to new replies.