Google Says My XML Feeds Are Soft 404

[santapaws]

I have a bunch of maps that load from an xml data page linked from the body of the mThe target URL doesn't exist, but your server is not returning a 404. Google is tagging them as soft 404. I always thought google wanted access to the full content of a page so i didnt robots.txt the xml feeds. What is the correct way to handle them these days to conform with the latest google? tx.

[ergophobe]

I think there's something missing in your post

linked from the body of the mThe target URL doesn't exist, but your server is not returning a 404

So "The target URL doesn't exist, but your server is not returning a 404" is the Google error message. But what's the rest of "data page linked from the body of the m"?

But in essence, you have valid links that do not have valid documents and when google goes there and finds an empty document, your server is returning something other than a 404.

So why isn't it returning a 404?