Currently, when a visitor accesses a non-existent URL, GoHighLevel performs:

301 Redirect → /error-404

/error-404 returns 200 OK

This causes SEO tools such as Screaming Frog, Ahrefs and Semrush to report Soft 404 pages because the server never returns a real HTTP 404 status.

The expected behavior should be:

Non-existent URL → HTTP 404

Display the user's custom 404 page

No redirect required

This is the standard behavior expected by search engines and improves SEO, crawl efficiency, and error reporting in Google Search Console.

Benefits:

Eliminates Soft 404 warnings.

Better compliance with Google's SEO recommendations.

More accurate crawling and indexing.

Consistent behavior with other CMS platforms (WordPress, Webflow, Shopify, etc.).

Use case:

A custom-designed 404 page should be displayed while the server responds with HTTP 404 Not Found, not 301 → 200 OK.

Suggested implementation:

Allow custom 404 pages to return the correct HTTP status code (404) instead of redirecting to a normal page that returns 200. This could be a simple toggle in Website Settings or the default behavior for all custom 404 pages.