What are HTTP Status Codes?
HTTP status codes indicate whether a specific web request was successfully completed. Learn the differences between 2xx, 3xx, 4xx, and 5xx codes, and how BearAudit tracks them.
HTTP Status Codes are standard three-digit numbers issued by a server in response to a client's request made to the server. They communicate the status of the request and tell browsers and search engines how to handle the page.
The five classes of HTTP Status Codes
- 1xx (Informational) — The request was received and the process is continuing.
- 2xx (Successful) — The request was successfully received, understood, and accepted. The most common is 200 OK, meaning the page loaded correctly.
- 3xx (Redirection) — Further action needs to be taken to complete the request. The most common are 301 Moved Permanently and 302 Found (temporary redirect). Search engines use these to update their index.
- 4xx (Client Error) — The request contains bad syntax or cannot be fulfilled. The most famous is 404 Not Found, indicating the requested page does not exist. A 410 Gone indicates the page is permanently removed.
- 5xx (Server Error) — The server failed to fulfill a valid request. Common examples are 500 Internal Server Error or 503 Service Unavailable.
Why HTTP Status Codes matter for SEO
Search engines rely on HTTP status codes to understand the health and structure of your website.
- Crawl Budget — Frequent 4xx and 5xx errors can waste your crawl budget and signal to search engines that your site is poorly maintained.
- Link Equity — Broken links (404s) stop link equity from flowing through your site. Proper 301 redirects ensure that value is passed to the new URL.
- User Experience — Landing on error pages frustrates users and leads to higher bounce rates, negatively impacting your site's perceived quality.
How BearAudit checks HTTP Status Codes
When BearAudit crawls your website, it records the exact HTTP status code for every single URL encountered (including HTML pages, images, scripts, and CSS).
In the Page Viewer, you can instantly see the status code of any page. Furthermore, BearAudit provides dedicated reports to help you quickly identify and fix Broken Links (4xx/5xx) and manage Redirects (3xx) across your entire property.