How do I return a HTTP 404 status code from a SPA?

Question

I saw a few questions like this around (like this one), but none of them tackle the problem specifically.

So Google is now supporting SPAs and most web browsers do HTML5 pushState.

My AngularJS (but could be any JS thing) website is using the URL to determine an API route. It then performs the API call and then renders the content accordingly.

However, right now Google tagged this site as "being hacked" since EVERY URL returns an HTTP 200 status code (example.com/get-free-viagra included). Fair, but how do I return a 404? Or at least inform Google that this is a not-found page? They don't seem to be providing that information and I'm seriously worried about SEO.

A few ideas came to my mind:

• Deprecate my current setup (I'm using AWS S3 to host the static website), and use an expressJS box instead, with a middleware that would perform the API call and return the 404 if needed. However, I don't like the approach since it will harm performance (two API calls per frontend request).
• Use window.location to redirect to a proper 404 page. However, I'm not sure if Google will follow it and it's already discouraged to change the URL.
• Use rel="nofollow" on not found pages, but I don't feel this is enough.

I'm now frustratingly leaning towards the first option right now.

Karns

Seeing as how I got downvoted for adding text into the wrong box, I suppose I should leave a comment instead... Did you ever make any headway on this issue? We have the same problem. – Accost

Not really. I ended up doing what the first option says. – Karns

Have you noticed a decrease in performance using that method then? – Accost

Very Slight, since both boxes are on AWS's same region, I'm doing a HEAD request instead of GET and I adjusted the API to just poke the database for the record. – Karns

Another possible solution to your problem: https://mcmap.net/q/321369/-in-a-single-page-app-what-is-the-right-way-to-deal-with-wrong-urls-404-errors – Suppository

Answer 1

Use window.location to redirect to a proper 404 page. However, I'm not sure if Google will follow it and it's already discouraged to change the URL.

Your assumption is not correct. Google will be very fine if you redirect to a proper 404 page (or a 410). Google will follow it and will be very happy with this information. It wants to know about bogus URLs to make sure these won't be included in their rankings. They will love it !!!

As a reminder, and although it is not the preferred way to perform a redirect, Google accepts and follows pages having a Refresh tag with its delay set to 0, because, in some tricky cases, there is simply no other way to perform a redirect. This is the recommended method for Blogger pages (owned by Google).

Google follows.

Unconformity

redirect from server or serve a client side 404? – H

How will Google know the URL you visited is 404 if you redirect to another URL? – Insoluble

Your backend server can at specific URL (let's say /404.html) respond with 404 code instead of your frontend app – Lanti

Googlebot follows JavaScript redirects and will use the HTTP status of the target page. So Google knows the URL is a 404 if you change the location.href to /404.html and serve a actual 404 status from that URL. – Doreendorelia

Answer 2

One way is to set <meta name="robots" content="noindex" /> in the head using javascript. Just be sure to remove it when navigating to a real page after. I found this solution discussed at Googles Search Console Help, apparently setting noindex is how they did it at angular.io.

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