HTTP STATUS CODES

Error 404, error 500, website publishers and users have all been confronted with such messages when trying to visit a website. In addition to the inconvenience caused, these errors also have a negative impact on credibility and natural referencing.

WHAT IS AN HTTP CODE?

Also called status code, an HTTP code provides an indication of the result of a request. These status codes are classified according to the type of message they send back. Among the most common are:

• 200 OK : this code indicates that everything went successfully;
• 301 Moved permanently and 302 Found to indicate that the URL has been modified, respectively, permanently or temporarily;
• 401 Unauthorized for unauthorized access;
• 403 Forbidden when the customer does not have access rights;
• 404 Not found: by far the most common answer. It occurs when the resource has not been found by the server. This happens, for example, following the update of a plugin or in case of modification of a URL;
• 500 Interval server error and 503 Service unavailable to stipulate a server error.

ERROR 404: WHAT IMPACT ON YOUR VISIBILITY?

A 404 error indicates that the url is wrong or that the page never existed. Either way, neither the Internet user nor the search engine can access the content. However, too many 404 errors can impact a site’s visibility in the SERPs. Google’s search engines favour the user experience (UX). An inaccessible page obviously does not go in this direction. It is therefore only logical that the SEO rating assigned to a website with too many 404 errors should be downgraded. However, 404 errors are not inevitable, their detection being easily done with the appropriate tools and plugins. Once a 404 is highlighted, there are different methods to fix it, including 301 redirection or htaccess modification. To identify possible type 404 errors on your website and measure the impact on your SEO, contact the SEO.fr team to get your diagnosis.