Title: soft 404
Last modified: August 22, 2016

---

# soft 404

 *  Resolved [mrppp](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mrppp/)
 * (@mrppp)
 * [11 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/soft-404-405/)
 * When WMT shows lots of soft 404 all pointing to for example `mysite.co.uk/search/%
   7Bsearch_term%7D`
    Is there anything that can be done in htaccess to redirect
   to a 404 (not a soft 404) or better still not allow google to the /search [https://wordpress.org/plugins/bulletproof-security/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/bulletproof-security/)

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

 *  Plugin Author [AITpro](https://wordpress.org/support/users/aitpro/)
 * (@aitpro)
 * [11 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/soft-404-405/#post-5517117)
 * It is better to tell Google and other search engines not to crawl and index the/
   search/ URI in your WordPress virtual robots code.
 * [http://forum.ait-pro.com/forums/topic/wordpress-robots-txt-wordpress-virtual-robots-txt/#post-6523](http://forum.ait-pro.com/forums/topic/wordpress-robots-txt-wordpress-virtual-robots-txt/#post-6523)
 *     ```
       // WordPress Virtual robots.txt additions
       add_filter( 'robots_txt', 'v_robots', 10, 2 );
   
       function v_robots( $output, $public ) {
       $output .= "Disallow: /wp-login.php" . "\n";
       $output .= "Disallow: /search/" . "\n";
       return $output;
       }
       ```
   
 *  Thread Starter [mrppp](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mrppp/)
 * (@mrppp)
 * [11 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/soft-404-405/#post-5517137)
 * ignore
 *  Thread Starter [mrppp](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mrppp/)
 * (@mrppp)
 * [11 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/soft-404-405/#post-5517142)
 * I mean
 *     ```
       User-agent: *
       Disallow: /
       Disallow: /cgi-bin/
       Disallow: /wp-admin/
       Disallow: /search/
       Disallow: /wp-login.php
       ```
   
 *  Plugin Author [AITpro](https://wordpress.org/support/users/aitpro/)
 * (@aitpro)
 * [11 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/soft-404-405/#post-5517151)
 * It is recommended by me and the WP folks that you use the WordPress virtual robots
   function in your theme’s functions.php file instead of a plain text robots.txt
   file, but yes you can do that instead if you want to. I read somewhere a long
   time ago why it is better to use the WordPress virtual robots function, but I
   can’t remember why that is.
 *  Thread Starter [mrppp](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mrppp/)
 * (@mrppp)
 * [11 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/soft-404-405/#post-5517155)
 * Ok thanks, i,ll ask the theme designer where i can place it. thanks once again
 *  Thread Starter [mrppp](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mrppp/)
 * (@mrppp)
 * [11 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/soft-404-405/#post-5517245)
 * just correct my last post incase someone ever uses it
 *     ```
       User-agent: *
       Disallow:
       Disallow: /cgi-bin/
       Disallow: /wp-admin/
       Disallow: /search/
       Disallow: /wp-login.php
       ```
   

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

The topic ‘soft 404’ is closed to new replies.

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 * 6 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [mrppp](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mrppp/)
 * Last activity: [11 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/soft-404-405/#post-5517245)
 * Status: resolved