HTTP Status Code

The codes that matter most for SEO fall into a few groups: 2xx codes (200 = success) mean the page loaded correctly and can be indexed normally; 3xx codes (301 = permanent redirect, 302 = temporary redirect) tell search engines where content has moved, with 301s generally passing link equity to the destination while 302s are meant for genuinely temporary moves; 4xx codes (404 = not found, 410 = gone) indicate the page doesn't exist, with 410 signaling a more deliberate, permanent removal than a plain 404; and 5xx codes (500 = server error) indicate a server-side failure that, if it persists across crawl attempts, can cause a page to be dropped from the index entirely. Auditing status codes across a full site (not just spot-checking a few URLs) is standard practice in any technical SEO audit, since misconfigured redirects and unnoticed server errors are common and often invisible without a crawl.

Example

A site migration audit finds 200 URLs still returning a 302 temporary redirect eight months after a permanent domain change — corrected to 301s to properly pass link equity to the new domain.

Related terms

• Redirect (301/302)
• 404 Error
• Soft 404
• Broken Link
• Site Migration
• Technical SEO
• Link Equity
• SEO Audit