Follow an HTTP exchange.

A conventional request

The client requests a public document and advertises the acceptable representations. This example shows a simple origin request with no authentication or application-specific headers.

GET /guide/ HTTP/1.1
Host: example.org
Accept: text/html

A conventional response

A successful HTML representation can carry a content type and a simple cache policy. Body bytes follow the blank line after headers. The length and validators depend on the server and are omitted here.

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Cache-Control: max-age=60

What HEAD tells you

A HEAD response gives the headers that a corresponding GET would produce in similar circumstances, without transferring the body. It is a good first check for page status and MIME configuration.

Beware that some applications incorrectly treat it as a separate endpoint. Test the actual server instead of assuming compliance.

Inspect an error

Request a deliberately missing path on a server you control. Confirm both the status code and the body. A useful branded 404 page must still return HTTP 404.