Question

Google Search Console indexing errors for static website on app platform

Posted on October 6, 2024
React DigitalOcean App Platform
Asked by bennyooo

Hi, I have a static React website hosted on the app platform. In my Google Search Console I get ‘Soft 404’ errors for pages that don’t exist anymore, because I moved them to a different sub-URL. I also get a ‘Page with redirect’ error for the non-https version of the home page (even though the website was setup with https from the start). How do I get rid of these errors? My routing seems to be setup correctly and the catchall is configured to index.html.

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Bobby Iliev

Site Moderator

• October 8, 2024

Hi there,

A soft 404 happens when a page returns a 200 OK response, but Google thinks the content is essentially a 404 (not found). Since you’ve moved pages to different sub-URLs, you’ll need to make sure that these old pages are properly redirected.

You can setup redirects for the old URLs to the new ones using the rewrites and redirects option in the App Platform:

https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/how-to/url-rewrites/

Basically those redirects for the old pages that no longer exist to their new URLs will tell Google that the pages have permanently moved, and it will stop reporting soft 404 errors.

Let me know how it goes!

- Bobby