Most Important HTTP Status Codes Every Digital Marketer Or SEOs Should Know!

You can solve many website-related problems with HTTP Status Codes, such as unstable hosts, moving websites that can affect rankings. To learn more about HTTP Status Codes and their importance to SEOs or Digital Marketers, Read this Article!

HTML Status Codes act as hints between computers. Hypertext transfer protocol is a request-response protocol. When a client sends a request to a server, the server responds with a status code that tells the requested browser what to do, Along with accompanying details, There are fixed HTTP Status Codes, And they work for all computers. It doesn't take much time to transfer status code details due to its small size, Also doesn't require much bandwidth, And the browser can understand what type of response they should provide to the client.

There are around 499 types of HTTP Status Codes, but we will discuss some HTTP Status Codes, Which are more relevant from the SEO perspective!

I would like to give an overview of all HTTP Status Codes in one line.

• 1XX =100 to 199 Informational codes.
• 2xx=200 to 299 Successful message codes.
• 3XX=300 to 399 Redirectional codes.
• 4XX=400 to 499 Client-side errors codes.
• 5XX=500 to 599 Server errors codes.

Important HTTP Status Codes From An SEO Perspective!

• 200 Successful: When a browser visits a link and the status code tells you 200, It means the webpage will show up as expected. However, When 200 code shows but the webpage does not, then it is 404 Soft, To perform good SEO practices, we test our website for broken links with 200 status codes, and if any are found, We should resolve them and remove them as soon as possible.
• 301 Permanent Moved: When the Server displays this code on a link, It means that the page has been moved permanently to a new address. Moreover, Google will pass the Page Rank and all authority to the new one, as well as provide that link to crawlers and users.
• 302 Found: This helps Search Engines to understand that the content they are looking for is on another page, Thus the found response, which is temporary, tells them that the page's Rank or Authority does not need to be transferred to another. (Use when temporarily moved) BUT DON'T USE FOR A LONG TIME AS SEARCH ENGINES CAN USE IT AS 301, Use whenever necessary, And for the shortest period of time.
• 303 See Other: It is more like 301 because it passes ranking signals, but this will only be used in certain situations, such as when you can't redirect the user back to the Website. For example, if you have a contact form.
• 304 Not Changed: If the link is visited and the server returns the 304 Status code, then the content has not been updated and the browser can show a cached version of the page. Crawlers always save a cache of a webpage and show the cache version to users when they visit the page.
• 401 Unauthorized: We use this code for authentication purposes, For example, if you need to enter a username and password to access a page, or if the server blocks a specific IP address, then the server shows the 401 status code.
• 403 Forbidden: This means a user cannot access that URL. If the user fills in the wrong username and password, it will display 403 (don't confuse 403 with 401).
• 404 Not Found: A 404 status code appears when the user finds something that is not on the server. This is not a server error, It is a client error.
• 410 Gone: If you have removed a webpage you can use the 410 code, which tells search engines and browsers that the page used to exist but is no longer available. After this code has been initiated, Search Engines will deindex this page.
• 429 Too Many Requests: Whenever you give this code to a client or browser, it means that the client sends too many requests on a server in a short timeframe. With this code, you can tell Search Engine bots that crawling speed is too fast and it will slow crawling speed, By doing so, you will prevent users of the website from experiencing slow website loading.
• 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons: When your content is removed due to some legal issues.
• 500 Internal Server Error: An error 500 means the server cannot meet the client's request and the server has no information about that as well. In this case, you will need to contact your host or hosting provider.
• 503 Service Unavailable: This means that the server is temporarily unavailable, but it will be available after a while. It could occur when your server is in maintenance mode or when it can't handle a high load of traffic, In this case, you should contact your hosting provider if you wish to down your Website for maintenance purposes. You can use 503 and let search engines know that the website or pages will be unavailable for a specified period of time. The website will be available after some time and so your ranking won't be affected. You can also include [ retry-after ] in the header to inform Search Engines when it will be available.

I hope you have gained some knowledge from this article somewhere and that it will help you somewhere else.