The page doesn't answer 200 OK

Why it matters

Search engines only index pages that answer 200. A 404 or 410 is dropped from the index, and a 5xx that persists is eventually dropped too; visitors arriving from a link or a shared post see an error page instead of your content.

Source: How HTTP status codes affect Google's crawlers.

How to fix it

Open the address in a private window. If it should exist, restore the page or fix the server error (the status code and your host's error log say which). If it has moved, send a 301 redirect to the new address rather than leaving a dead one:

Redirect 301 /old-page /new-page

If we were answered 403, 429 or 503 but the page works for you, your firewall is blocking our scanner rather than the page being broken: allow our user agent and scan again.

Examples

These are the rule's own test pages, and what it says about each. They are run on every change to the rule book.

They differ only in what the server answered:

403 Forbidden

WarningWe were answered 403. If the page works in your browser, your server or firewall is blocking our scanner, not broken; if visitors see this too, search engines can't index the page.

fail-403-blocked

404 Not Found

ErrorThe page answers 404, so search engines won't index it and visitors see an error.

fail-404

no answer at all

ErrorThe page didn't answer at all: the server couldn't be reached or took too long.

fail-no-answer

PassedThe page answers 200 OK.

pass-200