What is a Page Request?

Page requests on a website, also known as HTTP requests, are made when a web browser sends a “request” to a website’s server for information on a webpage. This happens when a user visits a page on your website. The user’s web browser sends a request to your web server, which hosts the webpage they’re trying to visit.

When a user enters a URL into a web browser or clicks on a hyperlink, the browser sends a web request to the website’s server. The URL being requested is the address that belongs to the server. Once the TCP connection is established, the client sends an HTTP GET request to the server to retrieve the webpage it should display. After the server has sent the response, it closes the TCP connection. If the user opens the website in their browser again, or if the browser automatically requests something from the server, a new connection is opened which follows the same process.

A webpage is what you see on opening an HTTP URL on your web browser. A webpage will have a main HTML document and may include other sub-resources like images, scripts, stylesheets, videos etc. The browser fetches these resources from the web server by sending requests to it.

There are different types of HTTP requests. For example, while GET requests are used to retrieve resources (e.g. loading a page) from a web server, POST requests can create new resources (e.g. posting a comment on social media).
HTTP requests are essential to displaying a website and giving your audience an engaging experience. However, too many HTTP requests can disrupt your website performance and deter would-be customers from doing business with you. The fewer HTTP requests a website has to make, the faster the site can load. This is because each time a page on your site is visited, the browser has to request lots of files. These HTTP requests have a direct impact on how quickly the web page loads. Generally, fewer HTTP requests mean a faster loading website.

The loading speed of a website is now an important search engine ranking factor. You can make a significant change in how fast your site loads by reducing HTTP requests. For example, you can try not to include content that pulls from a third party, like YouTube, since your page load time depends on theirs. It would help if you also replaced plug-ins that rely on third-party requests.

Our website grader tool allows you to check the number of page requests your website makes. If you are struggling to get these numbers inline, contact us and our team of experts will be happy to advise you on how to streamline your page request process.