HTTP status checker

Everything else in this product assumes the URL returned a document. A 404, 410 or 5xx means there is nothing to rank, share or preview.

Uses the public POST /api/audit. After the free daily check, continue in the workspace.

What we measure

The status of the final response after the fetch follows redirects. You see that code and the final URL. Soft-404s that return 200 with an error page are a different bug — they pass this check and fail the others.

What to do

Pages you want indexed must return 200. Moved URLs should 301 to the canonical, not 302 in a loop. Gone URLs should 404 or 410, not a 200 empty template.

What each code means for indexing

200 is the only answer that gets a page into the index. 301 and 308 move the address permanently and pass the signals to the target; 302 and 307 say the move is temporary, so the engine keeps the old URL and may not consolidate. 404 and 410 remove the page — 410 a little faster, because it states the page is gone on purpose. 5xx is read as a temporary outage: the engine retries for a while and then drops the page if it keeps failing, which is how a broken deploy can cost rankings weeks later.

The checker follows redirects and reports the status of the final response together with the final URL, so a 301 chain that ends in 200 passes here and shows up in the redirect checker instead.

Common mistakes

A soft 404: the server answers 200 with a “not found” template, so the engine indexes an error page. A maintenance page served with 200 instead of 503, which replaces every indexed page with the same text. A 302 left on a permanent move for years. An API that returns 200 with an error JSON body — the same bug, one layer down.

What the audit of https://example.com/ returned on 5 September 2026

As found

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: text/html

<h1>Page not found</h1>
<!-- a soft 404: the status says "index me", the body says "nothing here" -->

Fixed

GET https://example.com/ → 200 OK, final URL https://example.com/, 0 redirect hops
<!-- what the checker recorded for example.com: a document, at its own address, first try -->

example.com answers 200 directly, with no hop. That is the boring, correct case. The bad snippet is the case the checker cannot catch on its own — a 200 wrapped around an error — which is why the title and H1 checks run on the same fetch.

Questions

The page opens in my browser. Why does the checker say 403?

Your browser sends cookies and a full user agent; the checker fetches like a crawler. A CDN or firewall that blocks unknown agents returns 403 to crawlers too, and those pages are not indexed.

Is a 301 a problem?

Not by itself. A permanent redirect to the right page is the correct way to move content. It becomes a cost when it is a chain, when it points to a 404, or when internal links still use the old address.

What should a removed page return?

404 or 410 with a real not-found page. Redirecting every dead URL to the home page is treated as a soft 404 and wastes the crawl.

See the full audit in your workspace

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