Free HTTP Status Code Checker

What a status code tells Google, and what it leaves out.

Three digits arrive before a single word of your page. They decide whether Google reads the page, follows it somewhere else, or drops it from the index. Here is what each class means, what Google says it does with it, and the one error a status check will always miss.

What a status code is

Every HTTP response opens with a status line: a three-digit code and a short reason phrase, such as 200 OK or 404 Not Found. It comes before the headers and before the body, and the browser mostly hides it from you, which is why a page can look fine on screen and still answer with an error code. A crawler reads it first and acts on it before it reads anything else.

That is the reason to check HTTP status directly instead of trusting what the browser shows. A status code checker asks the server the same question a crawler does and prints the answer as a number, so a redirect that happens too fast to notice, or an error page styled to look like content, shows up for what it is.

# what the server sends first, before any HTML
HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Location: https://yourdomain.com/new-page

# the request that follows the Location
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: text/html

The five classes, and what Google does with each

The first digit is the class. 1xx codes are informational and you will rarely meet one on a finished page. 2xx means success: the server is handing over the content. 3xx means the content is somewhere else, and the Location header says where. 4xx means the request cannot be served as asked, the client's side of the problem. 5xx means the server failed. The table below is a short reference for the HTTP status codes you are most likely to see, with Google's handling taken from its own crawler documentation.

Google also documents that its crawlers follow up to 10 redirect hops by default, and that the content of a redirecting URL is ignored in favour of the final target. This checker uses the same ceiling of 10, so a URL that runs out of hops here is one Googlebot would give up on too.

Using it as a 301 redirect checker: permanent versus temporary

A redirect is a 3xx status code plus a forwarding address. The code states intent. 301 and 308 say the page has moved for good; 302 and 307 say it is elsewhere for now and the original address is still the real one. The difference between each pair is technical: 307 and 308 promise the browser will repeat the same request method, so a form that posts to a 308 posts again at the new address, where an old client might turn a 301 into a GET.

For search, Google treats 308 as a 301 and 307 as a 302, and says to use the code that matches what you mean, because other clients read them too. The practical rule is simple. A page that has moved and will not come back gets a 301 or a 308. A login screen, a short campaign or a page swapped out during maintenance gets a 302 or a 307. A temporary code on a permanent move tells Google to keep the old URL as the one that matters, which is rarely what the site owner wanted. This checker marks every temporary code for review instead of failing it, because only you know which case you are in. When the question is the chain itself, how many hops, where each one points and whether http, www and trailing-slash forms all land on one address, the Redirect Checker is built for that.

404 and 410: when a missing page is the right answer

A 404 is not a penalty. It is the correct answer for a URL that has never existed or whose content is gone, and Google's documentation says a 4xx has no effect on how fast it crawls the rest of the site. What hurts is everything still pointing at the dead URL: internal links that send readers to an error, a sitemap that lists it, an old article that cited it. Those are the things to fix, not the 404 itself.

410 Gone says the removal was deliberate and permanent. Google treats it the same as a 404, so the choice between them is about honesty to other clients, not about search. The mistake to avoid is the reverse: a page that has a clear replacement should answer 301 to that replacement, the closest match rather than the homepage, so readers and links arrive somewhere useful.

5xx: when the server is the problem

A 5xx says the server failed to produce a response. Google slows its crawl when it sees them and, if the errors persist, removes the affected URLs from the index. A brief outage costs little; a template bug that returns 500 on one section of a site for weeks can empty that section from search. For planned maintenance, 503 Service Unavailable is the code meant for the job, and the HTTP standard lets it carry a Retry-After header saying when to come back. Serving maintenance as a 200 page tells every crawler that your content has been replaced by a "back soon" notice.

Soft 404s: the error a status checker passes

A soft 404 is an error page that answers 200 OK. The server says success; the body says "page not found", or shows an empty search result, or a product that no longer exists. Google looks at the content, decides it is an error, and reports it in Search Console as a soft 404 instead of indexing it. This checker reads only the status code, so it will pass a soft 404 as a clean 200, and so will every tool that checks status alone. If a URL you know is broken comes back 200 here, the fix is on the server: make the missing-page template send a real 404 or 410, and use Search Console's page indexing report to find the ones Google has already flagged.

Why Googlebot can get a different answer

A status code is the server's answer to one particular request, and servers look at who is asking. This checker identifies itself as VerandBot/1.0. A security plugin, a CDN bot wall or a country filter can answer that name with a 403 while serving Googlebot and your browser a 200, or the other way round, and a server that varies by device can redirect a phone somewhere a desktop never goes. When this checker and your browser disagree, that is usually the reason. The view that counts for search is Google's own: the URL Inspection tool in Search Console fetches the page as Googlebot. Google's documentation notes that its inspection tools do not follow redirects, so inspect the final URL, not the one that redirects to it.

After a firm changes its name or domain

Regulated firms move addresses more often than most. An advisor changes broker-dealer or RIA and takes a new domain, a practice merges, a law firm renames after a partner leaves. The old URLs do not go away: they are printed on brochures and business cards, encoded in QR codes, listed in bar and professional directories, and buried in years of client email. Each of those is a request to the old domain that should end in one permanent redirect to the matching new page. Run the old addresses from your own printed material through this checker. The answer you want is a 301 or 308 followed by a 200 on the right page. A 404, a 5xx or a redirect that dumps every old page on the new homepage means a client following your own card lands somewhere unhelpful.

Google's site-move guidance says to keep those redirects for as long as possible, generally at least a year. For printed material the practical answer is longer: the redirects only work while the old domain is still registered and pointing somewhere, so keep it renewed for as long as your old cards and listings are in circulation. The same habit helps before sending a tracked link in a client email: check where it lands before a client does.

Common mistakes

• Redirecting every removed page to the homepage. Readers land somewhere unrelated, and Google may treat a redirect to an irrelevant page as a soft 404. Redirect to the closest replacement, or let the URL answer 404 or 410.
• A 302 on a permanent move. Common when a CMS or host defaults to temporary. It tells Google to keep the old URL as the one that matters. Use 301 or 308.
• Error pages that answer 200. The soft 404. A theme's "not found" template, an empty category or an expired listing served as success. Fix the template's status, not the page copy.
• Maintenance served as 200. Every crawler that visits during the window sees your pages replaced by a notice. Use 503 while the work runs.
• A redirect to an error. The 301 is correct and the target is gone, so the chain ends in a 404. The example in the card above is this case. Check the final code, not only the first.
• Letting the old domain lapse. Every printed and listed link to it stops resolving at all, and the domain can be registered by someone else.
• Trusting a browser test. Browsers cache redirects, especially 301s, and follow them before you see anything. A status code checker makes a fresh request every time.