HTTP Error Codes in Website You Need to Know About

Have a website? Then you will surely witness HTTP error codes at least once. A website will experience certain errors from time to time. While in some cases, these errors are nothing more than a mere warning, in other circumstances these errors can be stern.  

HTTPS error codes might not mean much to inexperienced. However, they can cause a great deal of obstruction to your website visitors who can leave for your competitors. 

Some of these errors can immensely affect your SEO due to broken links, lengthy redirect chains, and slow loading speed. 

In this blog post, you are going to learn about these HTTPS error codes in detail.

 

What are HTTP status codes? 

HTTP status codes refer to responses issued for a client’s request made to a server. And depending upon how the request is handled, the server shows different responses. 

When these requests get incorrect responses from servers about how the request is handled, they are known as HTTP error codes. 

 

HTTP error codes and their categories 

It is critical to understand the five broad categories of HTTP error codes before we look into several ways of fixing them. 

 

• IXX error codes (Informational error codes)

   These error codes appear when a website has a request from a server, but it is taking longer time than normal to process the request. 

 

1. 2XX error codes (Successful response)

    While they are known as errors, they are referred to as a successful response. This code indicates that the request has been received, accepted and consequently processed.

 

• 3XX error codes (Redirection)

   These error codes generally appear if you have changed the domain name of your site and need to redirect current pages to a new location. This informs the user that the requested URL no longer exists and they are now being taken to a new location. 

• 4XX error codes (Client errors)

   These refer to pages that no longer exist. However, in many cases, these can be fixed. The error codes appear when a site moves to a new domain without redirecting the old URL. 

 

In other cases, it can appear because the user has no permissions to view specific content. 

 

• 5XX error codes (Server errors)

   These errors indicate issues happening on the backend of a site. These errors recognise that the request has been accepted, but some issue is preventing the server from responding. 

 

Status codes significant for SEOs

It’s critical to learn — and commit to memory — the most influential status codes for every SEO professionals. 

• HTTP status code 100 – Continue

   A HTTP status code 100 indicates that a part of a request has been received without any issues, and the rest of the request should now be sent. 

 

• HTTP status code 200 – Ok

   This status code is an ideal code indicating that your everyday functioning page is operating is properly. Here, bots, visitors, and link equity pass through linked pages quite easily. 

 

• HTTP status code 201 – Created

  This status code indicates that the server has fulfilled the browser’s result, and developed a new source.  

 

• HTTP status code 204 – Content

   This status code tells that the server has processed the request successfully, but is not going to return any content. 

 

• HTTP status code 205 – Reset Content

  It is similar to status code 204 as it also indicates that the server has processed the request but is not going to return any content. However, in addition, it also tells that your browser needs to reset the document view.  

 

• HTTP status code 206 – Partial content

   If your HTTP client (your browser) uses “range headers”, then you may view HTTP status code 206. This allows your users to resume paused downloads and to split downloads into several streams. 

 

• HTTP status code 300 – Multiple choices

  This code means that you need to choose among multiple possible resources the server can respond with to fulfil your HTTP client’s request. 

 

• HTTP status code 301 – Moved permanently

   This code indicates that a web page or resource has been replaced permanently with another resource. This is utilised for temporary URL direction. 

 

• HTTP status code 304 – Not modified

  Status code 304 conveys to the browser that the resources stored in the browser cache haven’t changed. It’s utilised to speed up web page delivery by reusing previously-downloaded resources. 

 

• HTTP status code 307 – Temporary Redirect

  It is the status code 307 that is sent when a document is temporarily available at another URL. This is also returned. 307 is created as another and less ambiguous version of the 302 status code.  

 

• HTTP status code 400 – Bad request

  This code tells that the server can’t return a response because of an error on the client’s end. 

 

• HTTP status code 401 – Unauthorized

  A 401 message indicates that the server received an unauthenticated request. Here, the message announces that the page couldn’t load due to invalid credentials for any reason.  

 

• HTTP status code 402 – Payment required

  This is utilised by several platforms to show that a request cannot be fulfilled (generally because of lack of funds). 

 

• HTTP status code 403 – Forbidden

  This code appears when a user attempts to access something that they don’t have permission to view. It might suggest that the wrong username and password were sent in the request, or that the permissions on the server do not allow what was being asked. 

 

• HTTP status code 404 – Not found

   This suggests that the file or page requested by a browser wasn’t found by the server. Although, it doesn’t indicate whether the missing page or resource is missing permanently or only temporarily. 

 

• HTTP status code 415 – Unsupported Media Type

  This status code is returned by the server to indicate that a certain part of the request was in an unsupported format.

 

• HTTP status code 500 – Internal Server Error

  It is a generic code indicating “internal server error”. Here, something goes wrong on the server and the requested resource cannot be delivered.

 

This code is naturally generated by broken PHP, third-party plugins, or the connection to the database breaking.

 

• HTTP status code 503 – Service Unavailable

  It is usually seen on a busy server. It indicates that due to a server overload, the server was unable to complete the request. 

With this Blog You may also like Our blog on Best Alternatives For WordPress To Look For In 2022

Conclusion 

While HTTP error codes may look daunting on the surface, they are actually quite informative. 

In this post, we have defined various HTTP error codes that you might encounter in detail.  Having a proper sense of them is critical if you wish to maintain your website and ensure it is accessible to users.