Http Headers





What is an HTTP Header?

Your browser uses http protocol in order to open web pages while you are browsing the internet. The server sends http response to your browser when you type URL to your browser. HTTP Header shows the information that the server will respond to http HEAD request is sent.

What does an HTTP Header show?

HTTP header shows following information:

  • The response status of the server. 200 is regarded as valid response from server
  • Server details
  • Date of the request
  • Content type
  • Cookies – whether the cookies have been set for the domain
  • Last modified. If this request head has been configured in the server, it shows the time requested file was last modified
  • Content Length
  • Location


Why will you need to know HTTP Headers?

Although, http header are hidden from users, they play important role in developing web services as they use mainly http headers for authentication, content negotiation and caching. If you want to develop a web service for a particular website, you might want to know which content types it accepts, which languages application uses.