Error messages are forever annoying and disturbing.
Error messages convey important information. For website owners, knowing the errors could help you reduces your bounce rate, improves your search engine ranking and gives you knowledge on the performance of your site.
Every request with a response
The web works on a request-response system. When you type in the keywords you are requesting a resource, such as a web page or an image. The search engine would then source through the web to give you a response.
Understanding Status Codes
Status codes are three-digit numbers which would allow you to know if the request had received a successful response. The first digit of the error message defines the class of the status code:-
- 1xx – Informational Message
- 2xx– Request is successfully received, understood and accepted
- 3xx – Request is redirected for a response
The above codes are successful status where your browser would without user interaction. Error codes starts in form of 4xx and 5xx statues.
- 4xx – Client-side Error (eg: typing the wrong URL)
- 5xx – Serve-side Error (eg: database server is down)
In this article we would share some of the common error codes you face in more detail.
403 Forbidden
This is not an authentication problem, getting a 403 status code back means access to the resource is forbidden. The server understood the request, but is refusing to fulfil it. While sometimes this is intentional, other times it is due to misconfigured permissions.
The 403 error is essentially saying “Go away and don’t come back here.”
This error indicates a fundamental authority problem and the solution is through negotiating with the personnel responsible for security for the Web site.
404 Not Found
404 or Not Found error message is the most common error code faced by most users. It means the browser is unable to find anything about the request. This could be either because the visitor typed a wrong URL or if a certain web link listed on your web page has expired. Even thou Google claims that this error does not affect the site’s ranking, but it will increase the bounce rate (people who leave immediately) of your site.
These scenarios can temporary or permanent, thus, having a good Error 404 page is important. It would help make users want to try again to obtain information from your site.
Read more about The Best Error 404 Pages.
500 Internal Server Error
Also known as the HTTP 500 error is a generic message which suggests a problem with the website’s server. The problem may be an issue with the page or the site’s programming, but it is definitely something on the web master’s end. Again, the problem might be temporary or permanent. If you are uncertain, you could always refresh/reload by pressing F5 or by clearing your browser’s cache before accessing the website again.
If you are still unable to access after refreshing, chances are the website is really facing a technical error. Contacting the website directly and letting them know would help both you and the web master (and everyone else).
503 Service Unavailable
It basically means the web server is not available now. Most of the time, this error indicates that the server is too busy or because the website is undergoing maintenance. Same like the 500 Internal Server Error, you could try refreshing/reloading the page after clearing your browser’s cache. Another solution is for you to restart your router and modem especially if you were to see that it is a 503 DNS Failure error.
504 Gateway Timeout
The name says it all. This error means that one server did not receive a timely response from the secondary web server, and access to that server timed out. There could be various reasons for the delay; a DNS issue, a network device might be down, or the other machine could just be too busy to process the request. This problem is entirely due to the speed between back-end computers, possibly including the Web Server.
As with the other 5xx-level errors, the simplest solution is by refreshing/reloading the request which could result in a successful response. Otherwise, only the people who set up the network are able to fix the problem.
Now Pixely hopes that by helping you understand the source of each error you would better know the solutions to each problem.
Have you met with any other error messages which were not covered in this article? Let us tackle more problems together!
