208 Already Reported comes from the WebDAV binding extensions, RFC 5842. With bindings, the same collection can be reachable under several URLs, and a PROPFIND with Depth: infinity would list the same members again and again. Instead, the server lists the members once and marks later occurrences of the same collection with 208 inside the multistatus body.
208 is only meaningful inside a 207 Multi-Status response and only occurs for Depth: infinity requests. A server that prefers to refuse such a request altogether answers 508 Loop Detected instead.
Example response
HTTP
HTTP/1.1 207 Multi-Status
Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2026 10:15:32 GMT
Content-Type: application/xml; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 306
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<d:multistatus xmlns:d="DAV:">
<d:response>
<d:href>/coll/</d:href>
<d:status>HTTP/1.1 200 OK</d:status>
</d:response>
<d:response>
<d:href>/coll/alias/</d:href>
<d:status>HTTP/1.1 208 Already Reported</d:status>
</d:response>
</d:multistatus>SEO and redirect checking
No SEO impact: 208 only appears inside WebDAV multistatus responses, which search engines do not crawl.
Common causes and use cases
- A WebDAV collection is bound under two paths and a recursive
PROPFINDreaches it twice. - A bind loop, such as a collection containing a binding to its parent, is listed once instead of endlessly.
- It is rarely seen outside servers that implement RFC 5842 bindings.