Wow any reply for this? This is a real issue.
Hi there!
We actually have a lot more information on soft 404s and the effect of them in the calendar here if you’re interested:
https://theeventscalendar.com/knowledgebase/404_and_seo/
Wow any reply for this? This is a real issue.
Sorry if we miscommunicated anything, but we check this forum once a week:
https://wordpress.org/support/topic/please-note-this-forum-is-monitored-on-wednesdays?replies=1
Cheers!
Geoff
Yes, that’s the article that explains what the problem is, but unfortunately it doesn’t help. This events calendar may be good, but it is not good as far as SEO is concerned. Any plugin that produces ongoing Google warnings about flawed user experience should be taken seriously, not lightly. As far as SEO is concerned, all these soft 404s are a real problem.
Shoot, I’m super sorry you feel that way about the plugin, but I can assure you that the SEO of events is something we’ve taken into deep consideration and we feel that we have optimized the calendar in the best possible way.
We do offer a mini snippet here that will eliminate any 404, should you need it:
https://theeventscalendar.com/knowledgebase/fixing-http-404-errors/
Cheers,
Geoff
Thanks for responding Geoff. I don’t doubt that you guys did put deep consideration into the SEO of your events calendar, but I guess it’s just one of those “Google things” with complex reporting situations. Oh well.
I read that link you provided, but I don’t think it addresses what I’m referring to. It’s not that the events that are actually published are being falsely reported as soft 404s; it’s when they crawl a date that returns an empty event, then that’s when they classify if as soft 404, even though you guys report it as status 200. Again, it just one of those complex Google reporting things, but doesn’t look like you guys have any fix for it. It’s happening with most other events calendars on the market as well. Oh well, Google is always doing something to keep us jumping.
I appreciate that, dude! It really is a complex thing to stay on top of. On that note, we are totally game for new ideas on how to handle SEO aside from what we’ve already considered and have a feature request forum if you have specific approaches in mind that we ought to consider. Submit something there and we’d be happy to check it out!
Cheers and have a great weekend!
Geoff
