Should soft 404s be 404 or noindex

[denisl]

Am doing an extensive overhal of one of my sites hit by panda in May.

The number of soft 404's reported by WMT used to be very low but has been creeping up since June.

These pages are where members can advertise widgets but if they do not login for 90 days their listing does not show and a short message says why. I didn't consider this as a 404 as it is not an error.

But I have decided get rid of these in WMT so should I force them to return a 404 or should I noindex them?

These pages are likely to be in a temporary state - if the member logs in they can reinstate their listing. So which is easiest to revert in Googles eyes - 404 or noindex.

[phranque]

I would consider a 302 that redirects to that short message page and then noindex the short message page.

[netmeg]

Yea that'd probly be my first choice too.

[denisl]

Thank you both - that is an option I hadn't considered.

[Robert Charlton]

Are you sure, btw, that you actually want any "pages where members can advertise widgets" to be indexed, whether the members are active or not?

If I understand your description correctly, it's setup that invites members to use any practices they choose to promote their pages, and you're liable to end up with Penguin problems.

So... another option... you might simply want to have all such pages noindexed, regardless of activity status.

[denisl]

I understand your concerns Robert but as long as I can moderate them, these pages deserve to be indexed.