HTTP header Location

The HTTP Location response header indicates the URL to redirect a page to. It only provides a meaning when served with a 3XX redirection response or a 201 Created status response.

The “Location” header field is used in some responses to refer to a specific resource in relation to the response. The type of relationship is defined by the combination of request method and status code semantics.

For 201 (Created) responses, the Location value refers to the primary resource created by the request. For 3xx (Redirection) responses, the Location value refers to the preferred target resource for automatically redirecting the request.

If the Location value provided in a 3xx (Redirection) response does not have a fragment component, a user agent MUST process the redirection as if the value inherits the fragment component of the URI reference used to generate the target URI (i.e., the redirection inherits the original reference’s fragment, if any).

For example, a GET request generated for the URI reference “http://www.example.org/~tim” might result in a 303 (See Other) response containing the header field:

Location: /People.html#tim

which suggests that the user agent redirect to “http://www.example.org/People.html#tim”

Likewise, a GET request generated for the URI reference “http://www.example.org/index.html#larry” might result in a 301 (Moved Permanently) response containing the header field:

Location: http://www.example.net/index.html

which suggests that the user agent redirect to “http://www.example.net/index.html#larry”, preserving the original fragment identifier.