SEO: How do I fix A "Soft 404" error in Google Search Console for the Collection List page

Online Store and Theme Development
1

Short description of issue

SEO: How do I fix A “Soft 404” error in Google Search Console for the Collection List page

Link to Shopify Store

Reproduction steps

Search for madameti in Google and observe that /collections page is not listed in search results

Additional info

Hey Shopify Devs,

I am using the Collection List page (/collections) as a subcollection (grouping of 3 out of 6 collections in the store). This page is not being indexed by Google and Google search Console shows “Page cannot be indexed: Soft 404” error for this page. How do I get Google to index it?

/collections is not part of the sitemap:

https://madameti.com/sitemap_collections_1.xml?from=483561865516&to=495642706220

Do I need to create a custom sitemap? Or is there a better solution?

Thank you for your insights,

Marianna

What type of topic is this

Troubleshooting

2

Hello @Marianna_Shvartsapel,

There are no reasons for the page to be a soft 404. Possibly the robots have encountered a transient error when crawling.

There are no ways to update the sitemap in Shopify storefronts. But don’t worry, the URL is easily accessible via the front page so it’s not required to have it in the sitemap :wink:

Try to submit the URL for indexing again, and if it fails again, try using tools like Screaming Frog to evaluate what causes the issue.

Hope it helps !

3

Hello @teamdijon ,

thank you for taking time to respond!

Google still shows “soft 404” for this page Collections – Madame Ti

I tried validating again, but it failed.

Soft 404
Soft 4041016×546 62.8 KB

I’ve never used Screaming Frog before, but I just installed it and am not seeing any obvious issues… it says page is “Indexable”

Frog
Frog811×302 42.4 KB

AI suggests that the page might not have enough meaningful content for Google to want to index it… It only has images and names of 3 subcollections. Not sure if this is the real reason though…

Let me know if you have any other suggestions,

Wish gratitude,

Marianna

4

If Screaming Frog says it’s indexable, then it’s most likely a problem on Google’s end.

There’s nothing you can do except submitting the URL for indexation, so try again :wink:

The remark about content is to consider as well, maybe try to add a SEO paragraph after the collection grid, this will give more context to Google and let the crawler see the value in such a page, which seems to me, pivotal to your business !

Good luck with that !