Google Warns Against Cloaking HTTP Status Codes

Specifically, they wanted to serve an HTTP status code of 410 (Gone) to Googlebot while giving users a 200 (OK) status code. An HTTP status code of 410 informs search engines that a page has been deleted for good and needs to be removed from their index. In contrast, an HTTP status code of 200 means the request worked and the desired resource was successfully given. Google’s Position On CloakingIn response to the website owner’s question, Illyes strongly advised against cloaking status codes, stating it’s risky. Avoid giving search engines and users different status codes.