How to Test the 404 Page and Soft 404s on Many Websites at Once

A site that answers 200 for a page that does not exist is hiding its errors, and one made-up path per site is enough to find out. The bulk 404 page checker does that for up to 100 domains at once (500 after a free Google sign-in). Each row says Real 404 page, Soft 404 or a server error, with the status.

A soft 404 is a missing page that answers 200, or redirects elsewhere, instead of returning 404 or 410.

Why it matters

Google describes soft 404s in its HTTP status code guidance and may treat such pages as errors. A 404 or 410 is what search engines expect for a page that is gone.

The by-hand way

1. Type a nonsense path after the domain, such as /zzz-not-a-page.
2. In the browser's network panel, or with curl -sI, read the status.
3. Repeat for each site.

How the tool tests

Each site gets one request for /simpleverifier-404-check-9f3c1a, which isn't a page on any site we know of. A site that answers 200 for it, or redirects it, treats unknown URLs as pages. A single-page app can do that on purpose.

Step 1 to 3

Paste the domains (one per line or a CSV), run the check (five sites at a time), then filter to the flagged rows and download the CSV. To follow redirects the missing page triggered, use the bulk redirect checker.

What this check cannot do

• One made-up path per site, not a crawl.
• A single-page app may answer 200 on purpose.
• Sites that refuse automated requests aren't read.
• It is a signal, not a certainty.

To confirm sites are up first, see check if a list of websites is online.

Next: contact emails

For emails on the same list, verify them: the first 100 checks are free with a Google sign-in.

Try it now

Paste your domains into the bulk 404 page checker.