What does this website status code mean?

When loading a web page, you may occasionally see a status code instead of the page. When you get a status code, it can initially be confusing, but once you know what the code means, the problem is usually quite easy to fix.

Status codes for websites can be categorised by the number they begin with.

1 – Informational, telling you something about the page
2 – Successful action, telling you that the action completed
3 – Redirection, telling you that the page redirected somewhere else
4 – Client-side error, telling you that there is a problem with the browser or connection
5 – Server-side error, telling you there is a problem with the server

Here are some of the most common statuses that you will see:

200 OK

This is the status code that is returned when everything works and the server has completed its action without running into any issues. You will only really see this code if you’re running a browser add-on or using command-line tools.

404 Not Found

This appears when you are attempting to view a file that cannot be found. It may have a different name, be in a different location, or it may not exist on that server.

If your file is in the right place, with the right name, it may be that the domain name points to a different server than the one your files are on.

To check whether your domain name is pointing to the right server:

Log into your eXtend Control Panel
Click the link for ‘Temp Web Address’
Copy the IP address in the URL
Click ‘Ping, Trace, & NSlookup’
Enter your domain name in the text field
Click ‘Trace’
Compare the IP address that appears in the Trace with the IP address in your temporary web address
If they do not match, check your DNS records to see if they need changing

There might also be rewrites or redirects in place that move the browser from the correct file to a file that does not exist. You can check this on your Linux account by looking for the .htaccess, and on your Windows account by looking for the web.config.

403 Forbidden

The 403 error usually appears when your site’s files or folders have permissions set so they cannot be read, the file is in a format the server does not recognise, or that your site is disabled.

We do occasionally disable websites due to it being compromised, using too much of the server’s resources, and other such reasons. If you check your account, you should see a notification from us if this has happened, along with an explanation.

If the permissions are set so that people cannot access the file, you need to set the permissions to be more publicly accessible. In the eXtend Control Panel’s File Manager, you can select the file and check the permissions. In general, 644 for files and 755 for folders are considered good permissions to give. If the permissions are too liberal and could cause a security risk, the file will be highlighted in red in your File Manager.

If your 403 error also has a 404 error, this can happen when the file isn’t recognised by the server. This primarily occurs with home pages, since the server looks for an index.[filetype] first, such as index.html, index.php, index.cgi, and index.htm. However, you can configure the .htaccess or web.config file in your hosting package to accept whatever file you want to use.

500 Internal Server Error

The 500 error is a wide-ranging error and means that, in most cases, there is an issue in the file’s code preventing it from being properly interpreted by the server. This can be due to the configuration files, such as .htaccess, or the actual code within in the file.

To diagnose a 500 error, you must check the error logs for that website, which will have the details of the error, including the line of code where the issue arises and usually a more specific error message for you to troubleshoot.

You can find your error logs in your eXtend Control Panel, under ‘Log File Download’.

And here is the full list of website status codes:

Informational Status Codes

100 Continue
101 Switching Protocol

Successful Action Status Codes

200 OK
201 Created
202 Accepted
203 Non-Authoritative Information
204 No Content
205 Reset Content
206 Partial Content

Redirection Status Codes

300 Multiple Choice
301 Moved Permanently
302 Found
303 See Other
304 Not Modified
305 Use Proxy
307 Temporary Redirect
308 Permanent Redirect

Client-side Error Status Codes

400 Bad Request
401 Unauthorised
402 Payment Request
403 Forbidden
404 Not Found
405 Method Not Allowed
406 Not Acceptable
407 Proxy Authentication Required
408 Request Timeout
409 Conflict
410 Gone
411 Length Required
412 Precondition Failed
413 Request Entity Too Large
414 Request-URI Too Long
415 Unsupported Media Type
416 Requested Range Not Satisfiable
417 Expectation Failed

Server-side Error Status Codes

500 Internal Server Error
501 Not Implemented
502 Bad Gateway
503 Service Unavailable
504 Gateway Timeout
505 HTTP Version Not Supported