◇
SearchForged
Free - No SignupTechnical SEO Tools

HTTP Header Inspector

Inspect HTTP response headers

About HTTP Header Inspector

Inspect HTTP response headers of any URL. Check server info, caching headers, security headers (CSP, HSTS, X-Frame-Options), and content encoding.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which HTTP headers matter for SEO?

Key headers include: X-Robots-Tag (noindex/nofollow directives), Cache-Control (caching policy), Content-Type (charset), Strict-Transport-Security (HTTPS), Link (canonical/hreflang), and Content-Encoding (compression).

What is the X-Robots-Tag header?

The X-Robots-Tag HTTP header is an alternative to the robots meta tag that works for any file type (PDFs, images, videos). It can set noindex, nofollow, noarchive, and other directives at the server level.

How do I check if my server uses GZIP compression?

Look for the Content-Encoding: gzip (or br for Brotli) response header. This tool checks this automatically. Compression reduces page size by 60-80% and is a PageSpeed Insights factor.

Which HTTP headers matter for SEO?

X-Robots-Tag (controls indexing), Link rel=canonical (canonical URL), Cache-Control (page freshness signals), and Content-Type (encoding). Also check for unexpected redirects in the Location header and server response time.

What security headers should every site have?

At minimum: Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS), X-Content-Type-Options (nosniff), X-Frame-Options (SAMEORIGIN), and Content-Security-Policy (CSP). These prevent common attacks and contribute to perceived site trustworthiness.

How do caching headers affect SEO?

Proper caching headers improve page speed (a ranking factor) and reduce server load during Googlebot crawls. Set Cache-Control with appropriate max-age for static assets (images, CSS, JS) and shorter TTLs for dynamic content.

How to Use HTTP Header Inspector

  1. 1

    Enter the URL to inspect

  2. 2

    Click 'Check Headers' to fetch the HTTP response

  3. 3

    Review all response headers with explanations

  4. 4

    Check security headers (HSTS, CSP, X-Frame-Options)

  5. 5

    Verify caching headers (Cache-Control, ETag, Expires)

  6. 6

    Identify SEO-relevant headers (X-Robots-Tag, canonical)

Why Use HTTP Header Inspector?

HTTP headers control caching, security, indexing, and content delivery — all invisible in the browser but critical for SEO and performance. Our HTTP Header Inspector shows every response header with plain-English explanations and flags missing security headers, incorrect caching, and SEO-impacting directives.

Key Features

  • Complete HTTP response header extraction
  • Security header audit (HSTS, CSP, X-Content-Type-Options)
  • Cache configuration analysis
  • SEO header checks (X-Robots-Tag, Link rel=canonical)
  • Response time and server identification
  • Comparison against security best practices