Get HTTP Headers

Hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) is the protocol where the web depends. In 1991, it was introduced as a way to deal with the transfer of data between servers and users. In 2015, a newer version of the protocol, referred to as HTTP/2, was made and approved as the new standard, offering numerous improvements in speed and performance.

Nonetheless, not all performance concerns have been fixed under HTTP/2, which make it sometimes essential for developers and webmasters to execute added code in the form of HTTP performance headers to guarantee users have the best website experiences.

Enhancing the user experience is vital for service sites and ecommerce sites because:

• forty percent of visitors abandon websites with load times beyond three seconds

• forty-seven percent of users consider a load time of over two seconds to be slow

• sixty-four percent of shoppers go to other competitors when a website performs badly

• fifty-two percent of consumers say quick load times impact brand loyalty

In case you didn’t know yet, an HTTP header is the first nomination that a robot receives when it tries to visit a page. It’s vital to set up properly your scripts and server to ensure they send the correct information. That would be way to long to comment on all the existing codes. The most vital thing here is to send a header that corresponds to the scenario.

Here are the top five HTTP headers you must know about:

1. Status

The respond status is not so much a header field, as it’s part of the Status-Line in an HTTP response. However, you can think of that as a certain piece of pertinent information that you must understand. The status comes in the form of an HTTP status code, offering you instant feedback on the requested source’s status.

Response status isn’t a header field, but they’re part of the status-line in response. They’re pertinent to asses as they offer data about the status of the requested source. They are widely known as HTTP status codes.

Status codes are divided within the following categories from 100s to 500s:

• 100s (informational) – The request has been received, and the process is still going on.

• 200s (success) – The request has been received and works perfectly.

• 300s (redirect) – The request has been received, but it requires an added step to be finished.

• 400s (client error) – The request has been requested by a client, but the destination page is wrong.

• 500s (server error) The request requested by the client was right, but the server failed to provide it.

2. X-robot-tag

This HTTP header field enables you to specify robot directives. Google has offered a good resource on using that header field, complete with examples on ways to target particular user-agents with your directives.

When a page is not indexed, and you cannot understand why you can check for the X-Robot-Tag header field.

3. Link

Link is considered the HTTP field indicating the requested resource has a relationship with another resource, whose URL is added in the field value. One kind of relationship you may experience is the specification of a canonical URL in the Link header field.

That is not something that you come across often, but you can use the Link HTTP header field to designate a canonical URL for a specified resource.

4. Location

You can check the location field to see the URL that is directed to when the requested resource has been redirected to a new URL. That’s excellent for recognizing patterns in chained redirects and presenting generations of legacy URLs.

When checking response headers, you must utilize a tool that will give you simultaneous responses caused by redirects.

5. Server

This header field offers you the name of the server where the HTTP response has been delivered. That’s practical in the early stages of an audit or when it’s time to perform server-side redirects.

Before HTTP/2 was launched, headers were delivered and received in an uncompressed format, which led to enhanced data transfer and longer waiting times. Nonetheless, HTTP/2 introduced HPACK compression that has been known to lessen the size of the headers by at least thirty percent on average.

You see, HPACK compression is running on KeyCDN edge servers. Thus, if you are still not running your website over HTTP/2, then let that be another reason to make the necessary switch.

Putting the correct headers in place influences website performance by:

• letting your website deal with a higher traffic load without crashing or slowing down

• speeding up website page load times

• lowering the amount of data roaming between servers and browsers during page rendering

• reducing the amount of content loaded from scratch during every visit

• catching common elements to lessen the burden on the network

Together, such improvements lead to the kind of user experience made to support engagement and prompt responses to call to action. Web visitors are more likely to stay on your website, consider what you have to offer, and make the necessary purchases when key pages load faster. Further, they are more likely to share their positive experiences along with others, boosting your brand’s overall exposure.

An HTTP header tool checks the website response headers in real-time. That will be extremely practical if you have executed a custom header and would want to confirm if it exists as expected. You may also utilize this tool to display the standard header such as content-length, cache-control, expires, sever, and more.

Implementing the correct mix of HTTP headers must increase site performance. Watching your analytics is the ideal way to know where such changes have a major impact. You can utilize our HTTP headers tool to look for the following:

• lowered bounce rates

• a higher number of unique visitors spending long periods of time on key pages

• more repeat visits that lead to conversions

• increases in traffic from organic search signifying website rankings

Apart from those metrics, you can measure the time to begin rendering. That is the amount of time passing between when an initial request is delivered from a visitor’s browsers and the moment the content shows.

The time to interact sends how long it takes a webpage to load enough for an online user to click on links or enter details in a text field, like when responding to a call to action.

Why not? You see, website performance is vital if you wish for a positive response from your target users. That’s why they use of HTTP headers has become a common practice if you wish to optimize page load times.

No matter if you run an ecommerce site, offer a service, or simply try to boost engagement with your content, you like your visitors to stay long enough to follow through on intended actions and have a positive overall experience.

Try to experiment with other performance headers and track performance metrics to learn the effect of the changes. Stay updated about new technologies and keep a close eye on how Google and other search giants adjust their ranking algorithms with regard to performance.

Do everything you can to enhance the performance of your website, and you can reap the benefits of more traffic, higher conversions, and ultimately, better user responses!