#soft-404

#soft-404

404: URL doesn't get indexed; it's an invalid URL, so this is fine. Just to be clear: 404s/410s are not a negative quality signal. It's how the web is supposed to work. 410: It's a 404, essentially. Homepage redirect: URL doesn't get indexed. Maybe it stays soft-404 & gets crawled (not great, not terrible). Category redirect: URL doesn't get indexed. Potentially a short-term support for the category page, but still confusing to users.