Steps to Reproduce
- Navigate to https://smshub.dev/this-page-does-not-exist-xyz123
- Check HTTP status code in DevTools → Network tab
Expected
HTTP 404 status code with user-friendly error page and link back to home
Actual
HTTP 200 returned. No 404 message shown to user.
Root Cause
SPA client-side router serves index.html for all routes. Server should return 404 for truly non-existent paths.
Severity
Medium
Impact
- SEO: Search engines index invalid URLs as valid pages
- Monitoring: Cannot detect broken links (always 200)
- UX: Users not informed the page doesn't exist