Blocked due to other 4xx issue: finding the status code behind the label
"Blocked due to other 4xx issue" is a catch-all. Search Console has dedicated rows for 401, 403 and 404; every other 400-range answer lands here. The label does not tell you the code, so the first step is always to request the URL yourself and read the status line.
For indexing purposes Google treats 4xx responses alike: the URL is not indexed, and an indexed URL that starts returning one is eventually removed. The exception is 429, which Google treats as a sign of overload, like a server error.
Get the real status code
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" "https://example.com/the-url-from-the-report"
curl -sI "https://example.com/the-url-from-the-report"
Copy the URL exactly as the report shows it, including any query string and encoding, since the oddities in the URL are often the cause. The URL Inspection live test shows the same code under Page fetch, fetched from Google's side, which matters when the response depends on who is asking.
The codes you are likely to find
400 Bad Request. The server could not parse the request. Typical triggers are malformed percent-encoding (% followed by non-hex characters), a URL or cookie header longer than the server accepts, or a link that was truncated or had HTML pasted into it. Find the page linking to the bad URL and correct the link.
405 Method Not Allowed. The URL only accepts POST. WordPress has two well-known examples: xmlrpc.php answers a GET with 405, and so does wp-comments-post.php. Crawlers find both in page source. They are endpoints and should not be indexed, so there is nothing to repair.
406 Not Acceptable. On shared hosting this almost always comes from a ModSecurity rule that disliked something in the request, often the user agent or a query string pattern. Your host can identify the rule ID from the audit log and exempt it.
410 Gone. A deliberate statement that the content was removed. If it appears here for URLs you retired on purpose, it is working.
429 Too Many Requests. A rate limiter. Google reads it as "slow down" and reduces crawling. If it is frequent, your limit is lower than the site's normal crawl demand; raise it for verified search engine crawlers.
451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons and other rarely used codes usually come from geo-blocking or compliance tools at the CDN.
Decide whether each URL should exist
Sort the examples into three piles.
- Real pages that should rank. Fix the cause so they return 200. These are the only urgent ones.
- Endpoints and junk URLs. Form handlers, API routes, malformed links from scrapers. Leave the status as it is. If your own templates link to them, remove the links.
- Retired content. A 404 or 410 is the right answer. If there is a close replacement, a 301 to it is better; the 404 monitor in Hydrogen SEO shows which dead URLs are still requested, so you can add redirects for the ones with traffic.
Stop feeding crawlers bad URLs
Most entries in this row trace back to a link somewhere. Inspect a URL and look at Referring page in the discovery details to see where Google found it. Fix templates that build broken links, such as a share button that double-encodes the URL or a relative link missing its leading slash, which produces ever-longer paths. Make sure the XML sitemap lists only URLs that answer 200. Paste it into our XML sitemap validator to check it against the protocol; the validator checks structure and limits, so test the status of listed URLs separately.
Verification
Re-run the curl command for the pages in pile one and confirm 200. Use Validate fix on the row. Validation will report failure if any listed URL still returns a 4xx, including the endpoints you intentionally left alone, so a "failed" validation here is not necessarily a problem. Judge success by whether the real pages moved to the indexed list.
Common questions
Is "other 4xx" worse than a 404?
No. For indexing they have the same effect. The label only reflects that the status code was a less common one.
Why would Googlebot get a 4xx when my browser gets 200?
The response depends on something in the request: user agent, IP reputation, request rate, cookies or headers. Use the live test in URL Inspection to see what Google receives.
Should I redirect all of these to the homepage?
No. Blanket redirects to the homepage are commonly treated as soft 404s and they hide real broken links. Redirect only where a relevant replacement exists.
Do xmlrpc.php and wp-comments-post.php need to be blocked in robots.txt?
It is optional. They return 405 to a GET and are never indexed. A Disallow rule would stop the requests but is not needed for SEO.