The Location response header indicates the URL to redirect a page to. It only provides a meaning when served with a 3xx status response.
The HTTP method used to make the new request to fetch the page pointed to by Location depends of the original method and of the kind of redirection:
- If
303(See Also) responses always lead to the use of aGETmethod,307(Temporary Redirect) and308(Permanent Redirect) don't change the method used in the original request; 301(Permanent Redirect) and302(Found) doesn't change the method most of the time, though older user-agents may (so you basically don't know).
All responses with one of these status codes send a Location header.
Beside redirect response, messages with 201 (Created) status also include the Location header. It indicates the URL to the newly created resource.
Location and Content-Location are different: Location indicates the target of a redirection (or the URL of a newly created resource), while Content-Location indicates the direct URL to use to access the resource when content negotiation happened, without the need of further content negotiation. Location is a header associated with the response, while Content-Location is associated with the entity returned.
| Header type | Response header |
|---|---|
| Forbidden header name | no |
Syntax
Location: <url>
Directives
- <url>
- A relative (to the request URL) or absolute URL.
Examples
Location: /index.html
Specifications
| Specification | Title |
|---|---|
| RFC 7231, section 7.1.2: Location | Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Semantics and Content |
Browser compatibility
The compatibility table in this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.
| Feature | Chrome | Edge | Firefox | Internet Explorer | Opera | Safari | Servo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Location | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes) |
| Feature | Android | Chrome for Android | Edge Mobile | Firefox for Android | IE Mobile | Opera Mobile | Safari Mobile |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Location | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes) |