Types of HTTP Status Codes

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An HTTP status code represents whether a request from a client to the server was successful or not. These are attached to the web pages sent from the server to the user.

Status codes can be broadly categorized into 5 categories:

100-199: Informational Responses
200-299: Successful Responses
300-399: Redirection Messages
400-499: Client Error Responses
500-599: Server Error Responses

Here's a list of some common status codes which can be beneficial to keep in mind:

HTTP Status Code: 200 - OK

This is the ideal status code you want which indicates proper functioning of everything. Meaning, everything is perfectly fine no immediate action is needed.

HTTP Status Code: 301 - Permanent Redirect

A 301 status code represents a permanent redirect meaning that the requested website has been permanently shifted to a new URL. So all the users are automatically redirected to the new URL.

HTTP Status Code 400 - Bad Requests

Status code 400 indicates that the client request will not be processed due to a misstep on the client side and that the client should not repeat the same request without modification.

HTTP 403 - Forbidden

Error code 403 indicates that the URL is forbidden hinting that the server understands the request but refuses to authorise it.

HTTP Status Code 404 - Not Found

Status code 404 depicts a missing page. It does not mention if the link is permanently damaged or temporarily disabled but conveys that the URL being searched for does not exist at the moment.

HTTP Status Code 500 - Internal Server Error

This code simply indicates the ineffectiveness of a server to process the request made by a client. This can happen when an unexpected condition was encountered.

HTTP Status Code 503 - Service Unavailable

Status code 503 is encountered when the required URL is temporarily unavailable either due to an overloading set of requests or if the site is under maintenance. The user is usually asked to try again later.

Conclusion

These are some of the most commonly occurring HTTP response codes you will land up on, but you can look up the entire list of these here: https://www.iana.org/assignments/http-status-codes/http-status-codes.xhtml.

Knowing your way around status codes can come in handy for techniques like SEO and web scraping.

Himani9 months ago