The status that your website provides to Google is crucial in determining how Google discovers and indexes your content.
It’s important to ensure that your site responds with the correct status because it affects whether your content can be considered for indexing, how frequently it will be crawled, and how it will appear in search results. These errors will show up in the Indexing report in Google Search Console.
Given this, it’s important to have a basic understanding of the status codes that your site may display when Google crawls your content.
In This Article
How Status Codes Influence Crawling and Indexing
Overview of HTTP Status Codes
When a browser or crawler (like Googlebot) requests a page, your web server returns a status code. These codes fall into several categories:
- 2xx (Success): The request worked, meaning that Googlebot can crawl the page for indexing.
- 3xx (Redirection): The page has been moved or redirected. Googlebot will follow up to 10 redirects before settling on the final page to consider for indexing.
- 4xx (Client Errors): The page can’t be found or accessed. These pages usually won’t get indexed, and Google will eventually remove any pages already in their index.
- 5xx (Server Errors): Something went wrong on the server side. If these errors keep happening, Googlebot slows its visits and may eventually remove these pages from its index.
Detailed Breakdown of Status Codes
Here are the details of each of the HTTP status codes that your web server may return:
2xx (Success)
- 200 (OK): This means Googlebot can crawl the page’s content successfully. A 200 status is a good sign, though it doesn’t guarantee your page will be indexed, it’s still the best starting point.
- 201 (Created), 202 (Accepted): Googlebot waits a bit for the content. If it doesn’t arrive, the page might be treated like an empty or error page, which isn’t great for indexing.
- 204 (No Content): This means there’s nothing on the page for Googlebot to index. This often leads to what’s called a “soft 404” in Google Search Console, suggesting the content may be missing.
3xx (Redirection)
- 301 (Moved Permanently): The page has permanently moved to another URL, so Google will follow the redirect and treat the new URL as the main page.
- 302 (Found) & Other 3xx Codes: These are temporary redirects or less certain signals. Google will follow the redirect, but might not treat the new page as the main page. Also, Googlebot will only follow a chain of up to 10 redirects before giving up.
4xx (Client Errors)
- 404 (Not Found) & Other 4xx Codes: The page doesn’t exist or isn’t available at that URL. Google won’t index these pages, and any that were already indexed at that URL will eventually be dropped.
- 429 (Too Many Requests): This means the server is overloaded. It’s treated like a server error, so Googlebot will crawl less often, which can hurt how quickly your new or updated pages appear in search. You should have your hosting provider check the server error logs for details of what’s causing these errors.
5xx (Server Errors)
- 500 (Internal Server Error), 503 (Service Unavailable) & Other 5xx Codes: These show the server can’t deliver the page for some reason. If these errors don’t go away, Googlebot will crawl less, and your pages might get removed from Google’s index over time. You should have your hosting provider check the server error logs for details of what’s causing these errors.
How Status Codes Affect Your Site’s Presence in Google Search
- Crawl Frequency and Depth: If Googlebot keeps seeing 5xx errors or lots of 4xx pages, it’ll visit your site less often. That means new or updated pages might take longer to appear in search results.
- Indexing of Content: Only pages that return a successful 2xx status or that use proper 3xx redirects have a good chance of appearing or staying in Google’s index.
- User Experience Signals: Even though status codes are mostly for Googlebot, they also matter for real visitors. A site that returns the right codes is more user-friendly, which can indirectly boost your organic search performance.
Understanding and properly managing HTTP status codes is vital for maintaining a healthy relationship with Google’s web crawlers.
By ensuring your server returns the correct codes—2xx for accessible content, careful use of 3xx redirects, and minimal 4xx or 5xx errors—you create an environment where Googlebot can crawl and index your pages more efficiently.
Regularly monitoring the Indexing report in Google Search Console for errors and taking swift action when you detect problematic status codes will help maintain and improve your site’s visibility in Google’s search results.
In short, correct handling of HTTP status codes is an essential part of a solid, long-term SEO strategy.