This report displays the top status codes returned by your web server.
Drill down on a specific status code to view the pages which have returned the selected status code.
HTTP response status codes are returned whenever search engines or website visitors make a request to your web server. These three-digit codes indicate the response and status of HTTP requests.
Status codes fall into the following categories:
- 100s - Informational: Request has been received and the process is continuing.
- 200s - Success: Request was received and processed successfully.
- 300s - Redirection: Request has been received, but needs to perform an additional step to complete the request.
- 400s - Client Error: Request was made by the client, but the page is not valid.
- 500s - Server Error: Valid request was made by the client, but the server failed to complete the request.
Following are a few important HTTP Status Codes relevant to SEO Reports:
200 OK - The request has succeeded.
301 Moved Permanently - The requested resource has been assigned a new permanent URI* and any future references to this resource should use one of the returned URIs*. The 301 redirect should be utilized any time one URL needs to be redirected to another known address.
302 Found - The server is currently responding to the request with a page from a different location, yet the requestor continues to use the original location for future requests. This approach is not recommended. It is not an effective way to instruct search engines that a page or site has moved. Using 302 will cause search engine crawlers to treat the redirect as temporary and not give it the link ranking power abilities of 301 redirects.
404 File Not Found - The server has not found anything matching the Request URI*. No indication is given of whether the condition is temporary or permanent. This occurs any time the server can't find a matching page request. Sometimes, to increase search engine visibility, webmasters will display a text 404 error to visitors but the HTTP response code is 200. This tells search engine crawlers that the page has rendered correctly and therefore the webpage may be falsely indexed.
410 Gone - The requested resource is no longer available at the server and no forwarding address is known. This condition is expected to be considered permanent. Clients with link editing capabilities should delete references to the Request-URI* after user approval. If the server does not know-or has no facility to determine-whether or not the condition is permanent, the status code 404 (Not Found) should be used instead of 410 (Gone). This response is cacheable unless indicated otherwise.
503 Service Unavailable - The server is currently unable to handle the request due to a temporary overloading or maintenance of the server. The 503 should be used whenever there is a temporary outage (for example, if the server has to come down for a short period for maintenance). This ensures that the engines know to come back soon because the page/site is only down for a short time.
Note: Using this report requires prior configuration in SEO Reports - Configuration.
*URI stands for Uniform Resource Identifier and should not be confused with URL, which stands for Uniform Resource Locator
Available Report Widgets
Table
Table Widget
The Status Codes table widget contains the following columns:
- Status Code - The three digit message that a web server returns for any request from search engines or website visitors
- Count - The number of times a specific status code has been returned