Glossary · HTTP, edge and rendering
404 and 410 status codes
404 says the resource was not found; 410 says it is gone and will not return. Engines drop a 410 faster than a 404, which they keep retrying for a while in case it was an error.
What 404 and 410 status codes means
404 says the resource was not found; 410 says it is gone and will not return. Engines drop a 410 faster than a 404, which they keep retrying for a while in case it was an error. A page that is missing but returns 200 with an error message, a soft 404, is worse than either, because nothing tells the engine to stop.
What 404 and 410 status codes can and cannot support
| It can support | It cannot support |
|---|---|
| Engines drop a 410 faster than a 404, which they keep retrying for a while in case it was an error. | 404 says the resource was not found; 410 says it is gone and will not return. A page that is missing but returns 200 with an error message, a soft 404, is worse than either, because nothing tells the engine to stop. |
Terms this definition uses
Related terms in HTTP, edge and rendering
The delivery layer between an origin and a client: proxies, caches, redirects, status codes and the headers that decide what a crawler actually received.
Origin server · Reverse proxy · CDN · Edge node · WAF · Bot score · TLS handshake · DNS resolution · DNS timeout · Connection timeout · Read timeout · Redirect chain · Redirect loop · 301 redirect · 302 redirect · 307 redirect · 308 redirect · 304 response · 404 response · 410 response · 429 response · 500 response · 502 response · 503 response · 504 response · HEAD request · GET request · Content type · MIME sniffing · Content encoding · Compression · Brotli · ETag · Last-Modified · If-None-Match · Cache hit · Cache miss · Cache key · Vary header · Stale response · Stale-while-revalidate · Edge redirect · Origin bypass · Response parity · Header parity · hreflang · canonical URL · HSTS · HSTS preload list · Content-Security-Policy · CSP nonce · edge cache · cache split · cache-buster · Cache-Control · Age header · render-blocking resource · payload text share · lazy loading
Questions about 404 and 410 status codes
What is 404 and 410 status codes?
404 says the resource was not found; 410 says it is gone and will not return. Engines drop a 410 faster than a 404, which they keep retrying for a while in case it was an error.
What does 404 and 410 status codes not show or guarantee?
404 says the resource was not found; 410 says it is gone and will not return. A page that is missing but returns 200 with an error message, a soft 404, is worse than either, because nothing tells the engine to stop.
Which area of the glossary does 404 and 410 status codes belong to?
HTTP, edge and rendering: The delivery layer between an origin and a client: proxies, caches, redirects, status codes and the headers that decide what a crawler actually received.
See it in the full glossary · 668 terms across 19 areas.