How can we fix 404 Soft Errors in Wordpress and avoid Google penalty?

404 error is a HTTP response code where Google server trying to say that there are no matches found for a particular search.

One can fix this 404 Soft Errors in WordPress by adding certain codes at the theme function of WordPress. One need to know some php programming or advanced knowledge in HTML for changing the theme function of WordPress. So the point is don't try to do it yourself if you have no idea about PHP.

What is 404 Soft error?

Google returns a 404 Not Found error when it does not find any content. But for some reason, the search engine does not return a 404 Not Found error. This may happen when you have a page with no content in your website, or blog with a some text. It also happens due to your faulty code that a search leads the visitor to your homepage. In such cases, when Google search does not return a 404 Not Found error, but actually there is No content- They are termed as 404 Soft errors.

Why does Google charge penalty for such errors?

Google always wants it's visitors to get the relevant pages in search. Whenever your website has a page with no content, it should return a 404 Not Found server response. If you don't follow these guidelines by redirecting them to your homepage, or some other page, or you show an empty page- it is deemed as the violation of Google Webmasters' Guidelines. That is the reason you are levied penalty.

How to fix this error ?

You will need to add a snippet of codes in your themes php template. It requires sound knowledge of HTML. You also need to have some sort of php programming ideas. It would not be a good idea to try doing this if you lack these specializations.

Wordpress is great platform for blogging. 404 errors are very common in Wordpress and you can easily solve with ready to use plugins if you have no HTML or coding language.

I advise you to install a plugin called Easy 404 from below link.
http://www.ninjapress.net/easy-404-redirect/

After Installing this plugin Activate it and click on settings. Now select the page you want to redirect your user when its 404 error.

It is advice-able to make a page in Wordpress for 404 and redirect through this plugin or else you can redirect it to your Home page, About Us page or as you like-.