HTTP 204 No Content — Meaning, Causes & How to Fix
The server successfully processed the request and is not returning any content.
- Code
- 204
- Name
- No Content
- Class
- 2xx Success
- Specification
- RFC 9110 §15.3.5
- Cacheable by default
- Yes — heuristically cacheable by default
What HTTP 204 means
204 No Content means success with an intentionally empty body. It is common for DELETE requests, for PUT/PATCH updates where the client does not need the result, and for tracking or pre-flight endpoints. A 204 response cannot contain a body.
Common causes
- A successful DELETE or update.
- Analytics beacons and CORS pre-flight responses.
- A web page handler that accidentally returns nothing.
How to fix it
For site owners
- Never return 204 for an HTML page you want indexed.
- Do not send a body or a non-zero
Content-Lengthwith 204.
For visitors & developers
- Do not try to parse JSON from a 204 — there is nothing to parse.
SEO impact
A page returning 204 has no content to index. Google’s documentation notes such pages may be reported as soft 404s in Search Console.
Example 204 response
HTTP/1.1 204 No Content
Date: Sun, 08 Nov 2026 10:00:00 GMTRelated status codes
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Open HTTP Status Codes tool →All status codesFrequently asked questions
What does HTTP 204 mean?
HTTP 204 No Content is a 2xx Success status code. The server successfully processed the request and is not returning any content.
Should DELETE return 200 or 204?
Either is valid. Use 204 when there is nothing to return, or 200 with a body that describes the result.
Which specification defines 204?
It is defined in RFC 9110 §15.3.5.
Is a 204 response cacheable?
Yes. 204 is one of the codes RFC 9110 §15.1 lets caches store heuristically, so it can be reused without explicit caching headers. Send Cache-Control to control how long.