Search Console showing Soft 404

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Wirenut

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Google Search Console is saying that I have a Soft 404 at this URL: www.mysite.com/templates/jsn_pixel_pro/

That is the Joomla template that is used on my website. When I go to that URL, it shows a blank page with the source: <html><body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"></body></html>

I asked the developer and they explained why it happened and said to just add that page to my robots.txt file to stop Google from crawling it.

I did it, but now Google won't crawl it at all when I Inspect it and Request Indexing- since it is blocked by robots.txt. It's been a couple weeks and it's still showing as a Soft 404, so it seems as if it will stay that way.

What can I do?
 
support.google.com

HTTP Status Codes, Network and DNS Errors, and Google Search | Google Search Central | Documentation | Google for Developers

See how different HTTP status codes, and network and DNS errors can affect Google Search. Learn how to debug network and DNS errors.
support.google.com support.google.com

support.google.com

Block Search Indexing with noindex | Google Search Central | Documentation | Google for Developers

A noindex tag can block Google from indexing a page so that it won't appear in Search results. Learn how to implement noindex tags with this guide.
support.google.com support.google.com
 
Thanks.

So I removed it from robots.txt and I added that tag to the HTML page.

Now Search Console is still saying that it is a Soft 404 but that the URL is unavailable to Google. So it seems as if I am stuck int he same vicious cycle of it being labelled a Soft 404 but it not being able to crawl it to see that it is not.

Would it be better to add an on-page redirect to the homepage?
 
From Block search indexing with 'noindex' - Search Console Help
Block search indexing with 'noindex'
You can prevent a page from appearing in Google Search by including a noindex meta tag in the page's HTML code, or by returning a 'noindex' header in the HTTP request. When Googlebot next crawls that page and sees the tag or header, Googlebot will drop that page entirely from Google Search results, regardless of whether other sites link to it.
Click to expand...
It may take a while but that soft 404 will disappear. Just leave it and be patient.
 
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