HTTP Status Codes and How They Affect SEO - By: Tom Jui

If your website has not been getting the rankings that you would like with search engines and you feel as though you have done everything to implement and use the SEO that you should, you may want to take a look at the HTTP status codes on your website and see if you can improve. Search engines use HTTP status codes as part of the ranking process. There is an HTTP status code that can summarize your content and note if it has been changed or not. This is known as the 304 status code. This code translates the information that you have updated on your website and can let the search engines know that you have added new content to the pages of your website.

Understanding HTTP Codes Knowing how the HTTP status codes on your website can affect SEO is one of the things to consider if you do not think that you are getting the rankings that you want. There are many different status codes that you should be familiar with that can help you know if that may be causing a drop in your rankings and if it is affecting SEO on your web site. Any HTTP code in the 200 series means that it is successful. This indicates that the request has been successfully completed. The 300 series means that you are being redirected. It can give the information and indicate that the page you have requested has been moved to a new page or detour. The different codes within the 300 series indicate different situations of the detours. The 400 series of HTTP status codes indicate that there is an error request. It can mean that the requested information is not available or cannot be found. Series 500 errors indicate that there are server errors that are preventing you from being able to fulfil the request.

When you move a page on your website intentionally, or for whatever reason that it is moved, there should be a redirect indicator that is placed on the web page so that the user knows the new location. This should also be placed there so that when search engines are on your website they can see that the page has been moved. Having these HTTP status codes on your website and using them can have a big affect on the rankings that you can get with a search engine. It also can change the performance of your website. Using the codes can prevent information from being trapped on your web page and prevent it from not flowing or pulling the right information.

Status Code 404 One of the most difficult codes to understand correctly is the 404 code. This code is important to use because it takes the page off the list of pages that users can visit and also gives you the ability to track where these clicks are coming from and to use the correct link. When you are building or creating a website and are using SEO to help you get better rankings with search engines, it is important that you use the correct HTTP status codes. You can change many things on your website to improve it but if you are not using the right HTTP status codes, or if the search engines find errors in the status codes, it could cause your rankings to be lower than what you would like.

HTTP Guidelines There are guidelines that you can follow to help you better understand how HTTP status codes affect SEO and what you can do to improve them. Using 301 redirects is a good idea when you are redirecting anything on your website and any pages of your website. This is better than using other codes because it can help the search engines find the page that has been moved. If a page on your website receives a lot of important links, you should have the 301 redirect to the page that is closely related to the page that is no longer being used. This is a way to help keep the information somewhere on your web site, and it helps your users and search engines know that the information is still there, only moved.

You may not consider HTTP codes to be an important part of the SEO process but being able to find the information that is on your website is important to the search engines and to the users who go onto your website. When you provide links to your website and those links go to a page that is no longer there or has been moved, using the right HTTP status codes can help you still alert the search engines where the information has moved to and it does not have a negative affect on your rankings. Understanding how HTTP status codes work and what they mean can help you better know how to use them on your website to help improve your website and to get the rankings that you need with the search engines.

HTTP Codes and SEO SEO is one of the best ways to improve your search engine rankings and knowing all of the areas that you can use it to improve your website can be a great way to enhance the performance with search engines and get more traffic to your website. When you are creating content and pages and changing content on your website, remember that the HTTP status codes are also an important area that you need to concentrate on and use when you have links going to your website. Search engines should be able to easily find the links and pages on your web sitewhen they are looking.

Use Proper Codes If you are moving information or changing information on your website and on the web pages, make sure that you use the proper codes to indicate that the information has moved and provide the link to where the information can be found. Users need to see that the information that they are looking for is still there to access. It can also prevent search engines from lowering your rankings. Remember that if you are moving information from one page to another on your website to indicate that on the redirect page. You should try to keep the information that you have changed or moved to one page on your website that is closely related to the old page. This can help users easily find and access the information that they are looking for on your website.

About the Author

The Article is written by seoconsult.co.uk providing SEO and Search Engine Optimisation Services. Visit http://www.seoconsult.co.uk for more information on seoconsult.co.uk Products & Services

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