204 No Content means the server fulfilled the request and has no additional content to send. A 204 cannot have a body; the response ends with the empty line after the headers. The headers still count: they describe the target resource after the requested action was applied.
It is common for successful PUT, PATCH and DELETE requests in APIs, for analytics beacons and for the answer to CORS preflight (OPTIONS) requests. When a browser navigates to a URL that returns 204, it does not leave the current page.
A 204 is heuristically cacheable.
Example response
HTTP/1.1 204 No Content
Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2026 10:15:32 GMT
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: https://app.example.com
Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, POST, OPTIONS
Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Content-Type, Authorization
Access-Control-Max-Age: 86400SEO and redirect checking
According to Google, a 204 tells the indexing pipeline that Googlebot received no content, and Search Console may report a soft 404. Never return 204 for a page you want indexed. In a redirect check, a 204 at the end of a chain usually means the URL is a tracking or API endpoint rather than a page.
Common causes and use cases
- An API deleted or updated a resource and has nothing to return.
- A CORS preflight (
OPTIONS) request was approved. - An analytics or
navigator.sendBeacon()endpoint acknowledged the data. - A misconfigured route returns 204 for a page URL. Return 200 with content, or a proper 404.