HTTP Status Code Checker

The status codes that matter for SEO

There are dozens of status codes. A crawl of a real site turns up about fifteen of them, and each one has a specific consequence for whether a page is indexed and whether the links pointing at it count.

The 429 status code deserves its own mention because it is often invisible: a CDN serves it to bots only, so the site looks fine in a browser while Googlebot is being turned away.

Why the first status and the final status are both reported

Most status checkers follow redirects and show you where the URL ended up. That answers one question and hides another. This tool walks the chain one request at a time, so both answers are on the row.

• The first status is what a link gets. Every internal link, backlink and sitemap entry pointing at a redirecting URL pays for a 301 redirect on every visit and every crawl.
• The final status is what gets indexed. A 301 that lands on a 404 is a broken page with an extra step, and a chain that lands on the homepage is usually treated as a soft 404.
• The hops in between are the cost. Each one is a round trip, and a redirect chain of three or more spends crawl budget on URLs that do not exist.

For a single URL where you want every header on every hop, the redirect chain checker and the HTTP header checker go deeper. This tool is for the list.

Soft 404s: the errors your server logs never show

A soft 404 is a page that says it does not exist while the server answers 200 OK. It is common on sites where the CMS renders a friendly not-found template without setting the status, and on JavaScript apps that route every URL to the same shell.

Google detects these from the content and drops them, so they show up in Search Console's page indexing report as "Soft 404" while every uptime monitor reports success. This tool flags two patterns:

• A 200 whose title or main heading reads like a not-found page. It reads the first 64 KB of HTML only, so treat a flag as a reason to look rather than a verdict.
• A deep URL redirected to the homepage. Redirecting every removed page to the homepage is a common shortcut, and Google usually treats it as a soft 404, so the old page's value is not passed on.

How to check HTTP status codes in bulk

Six steps, ordered so the expensive problems get fixed first.

1. 01

   Paste the URLs you need answers for

   A sitemap export, the URLs from an old site before a migration, the pages a Search Console report lists, or the links in a spreadsheet. One per line, or comma separated. Duplicates are removed before the run starts.

2. 02

   Read the error rows first

   Anything ending on a 4xx or 5xx does not load. These are the rows with a cost: lost traffic from search, lost value from the links pointing at them, and visitors who leave.

3. 03

   Check the soft 404 flags

   A page that says it does not exist but answers 200 is a soft 404. Your logs show success, Google drops the page, and nothing in your monitoring notices. Make it return a real 404 or 410.

4. 04

   Shorten every chain to one hop

   A URL that redirects to a URL that redirects again is a chain. Point the first URL straight at the final destination, then update the internal links so they skip the redirect entirely.

5. 05

   Turn permanent moves into 301s

   A 302 or 307 says the move is temporary, so search engines may keep the old URL indexed. If the old URL is never coming back, the redirect should be a 301 or 308.

6. 06

   Export, then fix in order of traffic

   Download the CSV and line it up against a Search Console export. A 404 on a page with impressions is urgent; a 404 on a page nobody has visited in a year can wait or stay a 404.

For the list itself, the sitemap URL extractor pulls every URL from an XML sitemap and the website URL extractor crawls a site without one. To find broken links on a page rather than test a list, use the broken link checker.

What this checker reports

Frequently asked questions