301, 404, 200 – what are we talking about?
When you load a page on the internet, the web server returns what is called a header status or HTTP result code, which is a numeric value telling the browser and search engines the progress of loading the page requested. Search engines use these as part of their algorithm to rate the reliability of a website.
An example of the main header status codes we see in SEO are below:
200 – OK – this page has loaded fine, the ideal header status
301 – Permanent Redirect – the page that is being looked for has been moved to another location – the server will redirect the browser or search engine to this new page. A 301 tells the search engines to discount the old URL and use the new one.
302 – Temporary redirect – Commonly used in a similar way to 301s but only a temporary redirect. The browser and search engines will see the new content but the search engines are not told to remove the page from their indexes, so they will continue to try and access the page.
404 – Page not found – The server was unable to find the requested page.
500 – Internal server error – the server is unable to respond as it has encountered an unexpected error.
If Google or the other search engines find that a website is returning non successful type response codes this can have an effect on the way that the site is displayed within Google.
404 pages should be accompanied with a custom 404 page giving both the user and search engine a method of continuing to browse the site.
302 redirects should not be used where possible. Either show the content on the page on the original URL or use a 301 redirect
500 is the nightmare of websites, if Google crawls your site and it returns a 500 error then the chances of the authority of your site being impacted is high. This is one reason to ensure that you have reliable website hosting.
Your aim on your website is to have all pages returning a 200 header status. Where a page has moved a 301 redirect should be in place to direct users to the new content. Where a page doesn’t exist or a URL has been mistyped the server should return a 404 header status and show a custom 404 page.
There are some free tools you can use to ensure that your website is returning the right server header codes for pages including our broken links checker. Making sure that you get the correct header status in place for each page on your site is important for your SEO.
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