413 Payload Too Large

What it means

HTTP 413 Payload Too Large (once called Request Entity Too Large) means the body of the request exceeds a size limit the server enforces. The server stops rather than try to handle something bigger than it allows, and it may include a Retry-After header if the limit is temporary.

When it happens

It happens when uploading a file bigger than the configured maximum, posting an oversized form or JSON payload, or hitting a body-size cap set on the web server, application, or a proxy in front of it.

How to fix it

• Reduce the size of the upload or request body, or split it into smaller parts.
• Raise the body-size limit on the server (for example client_max_body_size in Nginx, or upload_max_filesize in PHP) if larger payloads are legitimate.
• Check any reverse proxy or CDN in front of the origin for its own, lower size cap.

SEO impact

None for normal pages. It concerns large request bodies, which crawlers do not send when fetching pages.