HTTP Status

HTTP Status is a reference site for HTTP status codes, but the real purpose is an SEO experiment. The goal: see how far a well-built, niche content site can climb on Google for searches like “404 http error”, “301 redirect”, or “429 too many requests”.

The Experiment

Niche SEO is interesting because the competition is both fierce (MDN, Stack Overflow) and lazy (most sites just copy the RFC spec). The hypothesis is that a site with genuinely better content, proper structured data, and a good user experience can rank for these long-tail developer queries.

Every page has:

• Practical explanations — what the code actually means, not RFC language
• “When you’ll see it” — real-world scenarios developers encounter
• “When to use it” — guidance for API designers
• “Don’t confuse with” — cross-references to commonly mixed-up codes (like 401 vs 403, or 404 vs 410)

Features

• 61 status codes across all five families (1xx–5xx)
• Bilingual — full English and French translations (122 content pages)
• Fuzzy search — Cmd+K opens instant search, typing any digit auto-triggers it
• JSON-LD structured data — TechArticle schema on every page, ItemList on the homepage
• View Transitions — smooth SPA-like navigation between codes
• Color-coded families — blue for 1xx, green for 2xx, amber for 3xx, orange for 4xx, red for 5xx

The Content Angle

The writing is deliberately opinionated and conversational. Some taglines:

• 404: “Nothing here. Never was, or isn’t anymore.”
• 418: “Brewing coffee is outside the scope of this service.”
• 200: “Everything went fine. Here’s what you asked for.”

Each code page also explains when to use it in API design — something most reference sites skip entirely.

SEO Stack

The site is optimized for search from the ground up:

• Proper hreflang tags for EN/FR
• i18n-aware sitemap
• TechArticle + BreadcrumbList JSON-LD on every page
• Semantic HTML with correct heading hierarchy
• Fast static output on Cloudflare Pages CDN

We’ll see where it lands.