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HTTP Status Checker

Check the HTTP status code a URL returns, with the redirect chain that led there, the response time and the complete response headers.

Fetching and analysing the page…

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HTTP Status Checker - results and guide

What the HTTP Status Checker checks

  • The final HTTP status code and what it means
  • Every redirect on the way, with its own status code
  • Total response time and HTTP protocol version
  • All response headers of the final response
  • Soft 404s: error pages that answer 200
  • Missing caching headers

What is an HTTP status code?

Every response from a web server starts with a three-digit status code that says how the request went. The first digit gives the class: 2xx means success, 3xx a redirect, 4xx an error in the request (the page does not exist or is not allowed), and 5xx a failure on the server.

Browsers hide these codes behind the page they display. Search engines act on them directly: a 200 can be indexed, a 301 moves the old address to a new one, a 404 is dropped, and repeated 5xx responses get pages removed from the index.

The status codes that matter for SEO

200 OK is what every page you want indexed should return. 301 and 308 are permanent redirects and pass ranking signals to the new URL; 302 and 307 are temporary. 404 means not found and 410 means removed on purpose. 500 and 503 are server errors, and a 503 lasting more than a few days is treated like an outage.

Watch for soft 404s, where a missing page answers 200 with a "not found" message. Search engines may index those as real pages. To trace a redirect hop by hop, use the Redirect Checker. To be told the moment a page starts returning errors, set up uptime monitoring.

How to use the HTTP Status Checker

  1. Enter the address of the page you want to check. You can leave out https://.
  2. Press Check status. The page is fetched from our servers, the way a search engine crawler would fetch it.
  3. Read the findings from top to bottom: problems first, then warnings. Each one says what to change.

Common problems and how to fix them

A page that exists returns 404

Check the URL for a typo, wrong capitalisation or a missing trailing slash, then check the rewrite rules and whether the page is published.

The server returns 500

Look in the application and server error logs for the time of the request. A recent deployment, a full disk or a failed database connection are the usual causes.

Missing pages return 200

Configure the application to send a real 404 status with its "not found" page, so search engines do not index empty pages.

Frequently asked questions

What does HTTP 200 mean?
The request succeeded and the server returned the page. It is the only status under which a page is indexed at its own URL.
What is the difference between 301 and 302?
A 301 is a permanent move: search engines replace the old URL with the new one. A 302 is temporary: they keep the old URL indexed.
What is a soft 404?
A page that tells visitors it does not exist but answers with status 200. Search engines flag these because the status and the content disagree.
Is a 403 from this tool a real problem?
Not always. Some servers and firewalls block automated requests. If the page opens in your browser, the block targets bots. Make sure it does not also block search engine crawlers.

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