404 Error behavior for index.php/foo (Soft 404)

[webaff]

Hi

As expected http://domain.tld/foo returns 404 Page Not Found.

But http://domain.tld/index.php/foo shows the homepage and returns 200 OK.

Can someone please confirm that this is the wanted behavior?

Background: After redesigning a website Google has a lot of obsolete urls in their index. Some of them look like http://domain.tld/index.php/foo and get redirected to the homepage instead of throwing a 404. These urls are shown as Soft 404 in the Webmaster Tools.

Thx

[DaveP]

Hi, webaff and welcome.

There are a couple of things you can do:

• Take a look at ProcessRedirects. This module offers an easy way to redirect old urls to current pages. No point losing link equity if you can redirect meaningfully. (This would be my preferred option.)
• Head off any 'rogue' URL segments in your templates (in 'head.inc' or equivalent). This tutorial gives plenty of info - page 3 deals with throwing 404s.

[webaff]

Take a look at ProcessRedirects. This module offers an easy way to redirect old urls to current pages. No point losing link equity if you can redirect meaningfully. (This would be my preferred option.)

Hi DaveP, thanks for your welcome and your help.

The ProcessRedirects module says:

Please note that redirects are active only when there is no page at the same url (so that without redirect it would give 404-error).

But http://domain.tld/index.php/foo shows the homepage and returns 200 OK instead of throwing a 404.

So the module can not solve the problem, right?

[Jan Romero]

Jumplinks can handle this. I’ve had the same problem recently. I do also think ProcessWire should 404 these kinds of URLs, though.

[webaff]

Jumplinks can handle this. I’ve had the same problem recently. I do also think ProcessWire should 404 these kinds of URLs, though.

Thank you, Jan Romero.

Installing ProcessJumplinks solves the problem. No further setup required.