What are HTTP Status Codes ?

HTTP Status Codes:
HTTP status codes are returned by web servers to indicate the status of a request. Codes 200 and 304 are used to tell the browser the page can be viewed. All other codes generates hits and traffic 'not seen' by the visitor. For example a return code 301 or 302 will tell the browser to ask another page. The browser will do another hit and should finally receive the page with a return code 200 and 304. All codes that are 'unseen' traffic are isolated by Logstats in the HTTP Status report chart, enabled by the directives ShowHTTPErrorsStats. in config file. You can also change value for 'not error' hits (set by default to 200 and 304 with the ValidHTTPcodes directive. The following table outlines all status codes defined for the HTTP/1.1 draft specification outlined in IETF rfc 2068.
They are 3-digit codes where the first digit of this code identifies the class of the status code and the remaining 2 digits correspond to the specific condition within the response class. They are classified in 5 categories:

1xx class - Informational
Informational status codes are provisional responses from the web server... they give the client a heads-up on what the server is doing. Informational codes do not indicate an error condition.

100	100 Continue The continue status code tells the browser to continue sending a request to the server.
101	101 Switching Protocols The server sends this response when the client asks to switch from HTTP/1.0 to HTTP/1.1

2xx class - Successful
This class of status code indicates that the client's request was received, understood, and successful.

200	200 Successful
201	201 Created
202	202 Accepted
203	203 Non-Authorative Information
204	204 No Content
205	205 Reset Content
206	206 Partial Content The partial content success code is issued when the server fulfills a partial GET request. This happens when the client is downloading a multi-part document or part of a larger file.

3xx class - Redirection
This code tells the client that the browser should be redirected to another URL in order to complete the request. This is not an error condition.

300	300 Multiple Choices
301	301 Moved Permanently
302	302 Moved Temporarily
303	303 See Other
304	304 Not Modified
305	305 Use Proxy

4xx class - Client Error
This status code indicates that the client has sent bad data or a malformed request to the server. Client errors are generally issued by the webserver when a client tries to gain access to a protected area using a bad username and password.

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

5xx class - Server Error
This status code indicates that the client's request couldn't be succesfully processed due to some internal error in the web server. These error codes may indicate something is seriously wrong with the web server.

500	500 Internal Server Error An internal server error has caused the server to abort your request. This is an error condition that may also indicate a misconfiguration with the web server. However, the most common reason for 500 server errors is when you try to execute a script that has syntax errors.
501	501 Not Implemented This code is generated by a webserver when the client requests a service that is not implemented on the server. Typically, not implemented codes are returned when a client attempts to POST data to a non-CGI (ie, the form action tag refers to a non-executable file).
502	502 Bad Gateway The server, when acting as a proxy, issues this response when it receives a bad response from an upstream or support server.
503	503 Service Unavailable The web server is too busy processing current requests to listen to a new client. This error represents a serious problem with the webserver (normally solved with a reboot).
504	504 Gateway Timeout Gateway timeouts are normally issued by proxy servers when an upstream or support server doesn't respond to a request in a timely fashion.
505	505 HTTP Version Not Supported The server issues this status code when a client tries to talk using an HTTP protocol that the server doesn't support or is configured to ignore.

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