HTTP 206 Partial Content

What does HTTP 206 mean?

The server is delivering only the byte range the client asked for with a Range header. Video and audio players use range requests to seek, and download managers use them to resume interrupted downloads. The response includes Content-Range to say which bytes are included.

2xx Success: The request was received, understood and accepted.

206 and SEO

No impact on indexing.

Example response

HTTP/1.1 206 Partial Content
Content-Range: bytes 0-1023/146515
Content-Length: 1024

How to return a 206 response

Node.js (Express)

res.status(206).json({ error: 'Partial Content' });

PHP

http_response_code(206);

Python (Flask)

return {'error': 'Partial Content'}, 206

Go (net/http)

w.WriteHeader(206)

nginx

return 206;

Related status codes

• 200 OK — The request succeeded and the response body contains the requested resource.
• 416 Range Not Satisfiable — The byte range requested with Range is outside the resource.

Check which status code a URL returns with the HTTP header checker.