HTTP Reachability

HTTP Reachability checks whether your page returns an HTTP 200 OK status on the final URL after redirects. friendly4AI fetches the URL, follows any redirects, and reads the status code. Exactly 200 passes (100); anything else fails (0). It is a binary check with no partial tier, and it gates every other Crawlability and content check in the scan.

What does HTTP Reachability measure?

It measures one thing: does the target page return a successful HTTP response. friendly4AI fetches your URL, follows redirects, and reads the status code on the final URL. A response of exactly 200 OK passes. Anything else fails. This is the foundation the rest of the scan stands on, since every other Crawlability and content check runs against the page this fetch returns.

Why does HTTP Reachability matter for AI-readiness?

AI crawlers expect a standard HTTP response, and a non-200 status stops them cold. GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, and ChatGPT-User all need a 200 OK before they can read your content. Serve a 403 Forbidden, a 404 Not Found, a 503 Service Unavailable, or a redirect loop that dead-ends on an error page, and no AI system can fetch, summarize, or cite you. When the page is unreachable, nothing downstream gets evaluated. No robots.txt rule, no structured data, and no metadata can rescue a page the crawler never received.

How is HTTP Reachability scored?

Under the v4.5 methodology, this Crawlability parameter is a binary check with no partial tier. friendly4AI records the HTTP status code of the final URL after following redirects:

• Pass (100): the final URL returns a status of exactly 200.
• Fail (0): any non-200 status code, an unreachable host, or a connection timeout.

The scan also captures the final URL and response time as evidence, but only the status code decides pass or fail. Since the check is pass/fail, the borderline is a single value: 200 versus everything else.

How do you fix HTTP Reachability issues?

• Confirm the page returns 200 OK for an anonymous request. Run curl -I https://yourdomain.com and check the final status line.
• Trace any redirect chain that ends on an error page, and make sure every 301/302 lands on a live 200 URL.
• Drop blanket bot blocking at the CDN or WAF layer that returns 403/429 to non-browser user agents. AI crawlers identify themselves and need a real response.
• Fix 5xx errors and provisioning gaps so the origin stays up through the scan window.
• Re-scan after any infrastructure or DNS change to confirm the page is still reachable.