The internet is made up of more than 1 billion websites. If an internet user wants to pull up a website, such as the homepage of their favorite team, their bank, or their email inbox in their web browser, they first need an internet address. This locates the desired website on the relevant network server. The transfer of the requested data on the local computer takes place thanks to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol HTTP. The browser (referred to as ‘client’ in this case) requests that the web server answers with an HTTP status code comprising of three numbers. The web server then informs the browser whether the request was successful, whether there was an error or whether authentication is required. The HTTP status code is therefore an essential part of the web server’s transmitted response and the server includes it automatically in the heading of every HTTP answer. An internet user normally only sees an HTTP status code in the form of an automatically generated HTML page if the web server wasn’t able to perform the client’s request or couldn’t transfer any website information.
HTTP status codes are generally divided into five different classes. The first digit of the three-digit code shows which class it belongs to. The HTTP status code 200 therefore belongs to the 2xx class and the 404 code to the 4xx class. This classification is decided based on the significance and function of the status code. The different classes are:
HTTP status codes play an important role for website owners or SEO specialists. Client error codes, such as 404 (Not Found) or server errors like 503 (Service Unavailable) are visible to website visitors since these are shown in the web browser as automatically generated HTML pages. There are many HTTP codes that aren’t visible at first glance and can only be controlled by the administrator using special tools and browser extensions. Finding errors and rectifying them is advisable so that user experience and search engine ranking is optimized. The most common response codes are shown below. You’ll find a complete list on Wikipedia.
More important HTTP status codes are:
In order to offer website visitors an optimal user experience, administrators should work on keeping automatically generated HTML error pages to a minimum. This especially applies to websites with a big web presence like online shops or news portals that have strongly-fluctuating product ranges or information. A visitor receives a 404 (Not Found) status message when a web page does not exist anymore. For many users this is a reason to exit the site and look for the desired information or product elsewhere, which could end up being on a competitor’s site. It’s therefore important for the website owner to do everything possible to keep the visitor on their website and also to identify 404 errors on the website. Google’s webmaster tools can create crawling error statistics for this purpose. The 404 HTTP status code can be avoided by redirecting users to the relevant location. The bounce back rate of visitors can be decreased through manually created error pages.
If a 404 error occurs due to a deleted page you can redirect the user to similar content using the 301 (Moved Permanently) status code. If the visitor does not find the product or information that they requested, the alternative content will encourage them to stay around longer. What counts here is that the alternative address is related to the original request and offers value to the visitor. Theoretically 404 pages are automatically redirected by a 301 code to alternative addresses such as a start page. If you manually look for suitable redirection landing pages, you will be more effective at stopping the visitor from jumping ship.
Despite good website maintenance, 404 errors cannot always be avoided. Therefore it is recommended to manually integrate your own notifications rather than using the server’s automatically generated HTML error pages. The configuration file .htaccess enables users to carry out this process. Alternative 404 messages are adapted to the design of the website and, on top of the status code, often offer extra information, comparable product pages, or an overview of the information on offer. How website owners can integrate alternative error pages is explained in article 10.
Many HTTP status codes are of great importance when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO). The 404 code does not just mean that the requested site cannot be found, but also that search engines can’t crawl the content. Just like with human visitors, search engine bots are also forwarded to different content. For SEO reasons the 301 code is displayed since link strength maintenance is of great importance. If the search engine crawler finds a 301 status code during a web address request, the invalid address will be deleted from the search index and a redirect then takes place.
The link strength of old pages doesn’t get lost in the process but is transferred to the 301 forwarding destination. This is especially useful if the old page had been the destination of incoming links and you want the acquired authority and strength to be transferred to the redirection destination. The 302 status code behaves differently since it only displays a temporary redirect so the old address stays in the index. The link power of existing backlinks isn’t transferred to the redirection destination in this case.
If your online project is growing and beginning to attract international customers, the workload of your server is also increasing. High user numbers and the large geographical distribution of the clients result in ever-increasing loading times and slow transfer rates. By using a CDN (content delivery network), you’ll be able to react to increasing demands and optimize your data delivery.
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