Probe final status codes, redirect hop counts, loops, and soft-404 pages that return 200 with not-found content.
- Free
- No signup
- Fast
- Privacy-friendly
What is HTTP Status Checker?
Wrong status codes keep dead pages indexable or waste crawl on error loops. Check HTTP status, redirect hops, and soft-404 heuristics for any public URL — with severity scoring and fix guidance. Agents include this in ship-gate / developer-ship-checklist playbooks and verify until status issues clear — see <a href="/developers/ship-gate">ship gate</a>.
What are common questions about HTTP Status Checker?
What problem does the HTTP Status Checker solve?
It verifies that a URL returns the status you intend — real 200 content, honest 404/410 for missing pages, and short redirect paths — while flagging soft 404s.
Who uses status checks in SEO workflows?
Technical SEO, devops, and content ops use them for migration QA, soft-404 cleanup, and incident checks on money URLs.
What is a soft 404?
A soft 404 is an HTTP 200 response with not-found titles or thin error copy. Missing pages belong on 404 or 410, not 200.
Which status fits permanently removed content?
Use 410 Gone or 404 Not Found. Use 301 when a lasting replacement URL exists.
Which status fits temporary outage?
Temporary failure fits 503 with Retry-After when available. Persistent 5xx waste crawl retries.
How many hops count as a long redirect path?
Paths above 3 hops count as long here. Single-hop redirects remain normal for HTTPS upgrades.
Does 200 guarantee index quality?
No. 200 only means successful retrieval. Soft 404 and thin content still reduce quality on 200 responses.
Where do full hop graphs live?
Full hop graphs live on the Redirect Chain Analyzer. This tool keeps hop summaries plus soft-404 heuristics.
What are the key features of HTTP Status Checker?
Final status reporting
Records the last non-redirecting or terminal status after capped hops.
Soft-404 heuristics
Flags 200 responses with not-found titles or thin error body language.
Hop count and loops
Counts redirect hops and stops on cyclic Location targets with evidence.
Title extraction
Reads HTML title text for soft-404 language checks on 200 responses.
First-hop latency proxy
Records first-hop time in ms as a TTFB-style probe, not CrUX field data.
Severity scoring
Maps 5xx, 4xx, soft 404, and long chains into documented score bands with fixes.
How do you use HTTP Status Checker?
Enter the URL under test
Paste an absolute HTTP or HTTPS URL, including path and query when relevant.
Run the status checker
Follow redirects, record statuses, and evaluate soft-404 signals on 200 HTML.
Align codes with intent
Return 404/410 for missing pages, keep 200 for real content, and collapse long hops.
Why status codes and soft 404s matter for crawl
RFC 9110 defines the status families: 2xx success, 3xx redirects, 4xx client errors, 5xx server errors. SEO problems appear when meaning and code disagree — especially custom error pages that keep HTTP 200 with “Page not found” in the title.
Google Search Central documentation calls soft 404 a quality risk: retrieval succeeds, but the document signals absence. Those URLs compete for crawl and can linger in coverage reports. True 404/410 declare absence without soft signals. Brand pages that intentionally use “not found” wording in marketing can false-positive heuristics — treat findings as evidence to review, not auto-delete.
Use cases: migrations, GSC cleanup, and launch gates
URL migration — Spot-check old paths: permanent moves end in one 301 to the final URL; removed content returns 404/410, not 200 error templates.
Search Console Soft 404 / crawled - currently not indexed — Reproduce the URL here; confirm whether the title and body look like an error page on 200.
Launch checklist — Homepage, signup, pricing, and top blog posts must return clean 200 with no surprise redirect loops.
Performance-adjacent debugging — Slow first hop on a money URL shows up in latency evidence; continue load diagnostics on Page Speed Analyzer.
How this tool relates to redirect chain analysis
Status checking answers “what code and soft-404 signals?” Redirect chain analysis answers “what is the hop graph?” Use this tool first on individual URLs from sitemaps or analytics; open the Redirect Chain Analyzer when hop counts are high and you need from→to edges, HTTPS upgrades, and www flips visualized.
Limits: soft-404 detection is heuristic (title/body language), not Google’s internal classifier. Caps bound redirect follows.
Free · API · MCPToolYour platform
Use HTTP Status Checker three ways
The free HTTP Status Checker on this page works in your browser. The same workflow is available via REST API for apps and via the remote MCP server for Cursor, Claude, and other agents — one API key, one plan, one quota. This tool is part of the seo-apis module under Digital Tools.
Agents close the full job with run_playbook ship-gate, then verify until pass — see ship gate.
- Free in browserUse HTTP Status Checker here — no account required.
- REST APICall from your server with
X-Api-Key. - Remote MCP serverSame job from Cursor or Claude via the ToolYour remote MCP server — one API key with REST.
- 1. Get an API keySign in and open Dashboard → API Keys (works for REST and MCP).
- 2. Call or connectUse the REST API from your server, or paste the MCP URL into your agent config.
- 3. Same key & creditsREST and MCP share one API key and monthly credit quota with this browser tool when the tool is API-backed.
Which technical SEO tools sit in this cluster?
- Page speed analyzer
Load and performance signals for a URL.
- Robots.txt checker
Crawl allow/deny rules and common mistakes.
- Sitemap XML validator
Sitemap coverage and crawl-load indicators.
- Canonical URL checker
Self-canonical, chains, and conflicts.
- Redirect chain analyzer
Hop graph and crawl latency on redirect paths.
Where does this job fit on ToolYour?
Which security checks pair with this SEO workflow?
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Which toolkits include HTTP Status Checker?
- SEO Toolkit
SEO Toolkit groups keyword checker, page speed analyzer, internal link checker, link extractor, and site audit tools for on-page SEO workflows — browser smoke-checks plus agent playbooks.
- Developer Toolkit
JSON/XML/SQL formatters, encoders, UUID/timestamp/regex, JSON codegen, JWT minting, HTTP headers, request builders, cron, minifiers, and color conversion — plus security and text peers.