{"id":2175,"slug":"google-response-code-handling","title":"Googlebot response-code handling — 200 proceeds, 3xx is followed (up to a chain limit), 4xx (incl. 410) is dropped without wasting crawl budget, 5xx slows or pauses crawl, soft-404 confuses everything","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"internal","audiences":["kevin","candid-team"],"topics":["google-search-pipeline","crawl-and-discovery"],"reference_body":"**Claim:** Per Google's documentation, Googlebot handles HTTP response codes as follows:\n\n- **200** — eligible to proceed to rendering/indexing.\n- **3xx** — followed (Google follows redirect chains up to a limit; long chains waste resources).\n- **4xx (incl. 410)** — dropped from crawl. Google explicitly notes 4xx do *not* \"waste\" crawl budget. 404/410 are the clean way to remove content.\n- **5xx / timeouts** — Google slows or pauses crawling to avoid overloading the server; sustained 5xx can reduce crawl rate site-wide.\n- **Soft 404s** (200 status on a \"not found\" page) — confuse the crawler and waste resources; Google advises eliminating them.\n\nFaster server response can *let* Google crawl more — but Google stresses that simply speeding up *low-quality* pages won't increase crawling.\n\n**Source:** Google Search Central documentation.\n\n**Confidence:** High.\n\n**Caveat:** Soft-404 is the silent killer on WordPress sites — empty category pages, \"no results found\" search pages returning 200 — and is a frequent Candid-audit finding.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"rule-prelaunch-discovery-gates","title":"Rule (Stage A, pre-launch / launch week): remove the gates — verify GSC, submit honest sitemap, request homepage indexing, confirm robots.txt + DNS + 200/404/410 hygiene, ensure mobile/desktop parity","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-google-search-lifecycle-june-2026","title":"Research brief: the lifecycle of a website in Google Search — from launch to mature standing and the perpetual re-evaluation that follows (June 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"research-brief-launch-build-technical-foundation-june-2026","title":"Research brief: the launch-build technical foundation — what the technology must get right before a new site can be found (June 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"google-200-response-gate-for-render-queue","title":"Google hard gate — only 200-status pages are queued for rendering; non-200 (4xx/5xx) may skip rendering entirely","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}]},"created_at":"2026-06-25T15:19:39.168Z","updated_at":"2026-06-25T17:07:10.774Z"}