The HTTP Location header is returned in responses from an HTTP server under two circumstances:

1. To ask a web browser to load a different web page. It is passed as part of the response by a web server when the requested URI

Úri

Úriis a village and commune in the comitatus of Pest in Hungary....

 has:

• Moved temporarily, or
• Moved permanently

In this circumstance, the HTTP Location header should be sent with an HTTP status code of 3xx.

2. To provide information about the location of a newly-created resource.

In this circumstance, the HTTP Location header should be sent with an HTTP status code of 201.

While the internet standard RFC 1945 (HTTP 1.0) requires a complete absolute URI for redirection, the most popular web browsers support the passing of a Relative URL as the value for a Location: header.

Example

The internet standard requires an absoluteURI token to follow a Location: header, which means it must contain a scheme (e.g., http:, https:, telnet:, mailto:) and conforms to scheme-specific syntax and semantics. For example, the HTTP scheme-specific syntax and semantics for HTTP URLs requires a "host" (web server address) and "absolute path", with optional components of "port" and "query". In the case that there is no absolute path present, it must be given as "/" when used as a Request-URI for a resource.

Client request:

GET /index.html HTTP/1.1

Host: www.example.com

Server response:

HTTP/1.1 302 Found

Location: http://www.example.org/index.php

Relative URL Example

This example, while incorrect based on the internet standard, will often work in popular browsers.

Client request:

GET /blog HTTP/1.1

Host: www.example.com

Server response:

HTTP/1.1 302 Found

Location: /blog/