---
title: "408 Request Timeout"
canonical: "https://lemwatch.com/http-status-codes/408"
category: "client-error"
last_verified: "2026-08-11"
source: "https://lemwatch.com"
---

# HTTP 408 Request Timeout

**Summary** — The server timed out waiting for the request from the client.

## What it means

HTTP 408 Request Timeout means the server waited too long for the client to complete sending the request. This is different from a server timeout (504) — here the server is ready but the client is too slow.

## Common causes

- Slow network connection
- Client took too long to send data
- Large file upload on slow connection
- Server timeout configured too aggressively

## How to fix

- Check network connectivity
- Increase server timeout settings
- Implement chunked uploads for large files
- Use a CDN to reduce latency

## SEO impact

Frequent timeouts hurt SEO. Google may reduce crawl rate if your server frequently times out.

## Monitoring tip

LemWatch tracks response times and alerts when they exceed your configured thresholds. This catches timeout issues before they affect users.

**Related:** [504](https://lemwatch.com/http-status-codes/504.md), [503](https://lemwatch.com/http-status-codes/503.md)

_Canonical HTML page: https://lemwatch.com/http-status-codes/408_