Manually testing a web server response using telnet 80
This is useful to check for 301 or 302 responses to help with SEO, a 302 response is looked at as duplicate content on the internet and has a penalising effect with search engine results, good computer support.
You can also get more detailed errors than what a web browser will give you.
You need to telnet to the web server on the interface that you want to check the response from, e.g. its public address on port 80.
From a command prompt type;
telnet [host] [port] e.g. telnet www.websitename.co.uk 80
A blank screen will be seen, ready to start receiving more commands, If Unix server this is case sensitive.
GET / HTTP/1.1
host: www.websitename.co.uk
Then press Enter twice.
You will then see the response from the webserver scroll up the screen. You are looking for the header like
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
A list of the explanations of the error codes can be found here.
If you are not seeing what you are typing during the session you may want to turn on localecho.
Type Ctrl+] (hold down the Ctrl key and press the right bracket)
Type
set localecho