Webserver Technical Notes Part 2:

Our guide continues and we are explaining webserver error codes in this comprehensive guide. The 403 Forbidden HTTP status code indicates that the client was able to communicate with the server, but the server doesn't let the user access what was requested.

An example of descriptive English text that can often accompany such a response is You don't have permission to access /forbidden on this server.

This indicates a fundamental access problem, which may be difficult to resolve, because the HTTP protocol allows the Web server to give this response without providing any reason at all. So the 403 error is equivalent to a blanket 'NO' by your Web server - with no further discussion allowed, and according to the RFC specifications, with a 403 error code, the request should not be repeated.

This response may indicate a resource that requires authentication, such as basic access authentication or digest access authentication through the Authorization request header, or some other form of authentication which is managed through user scripts in a programming language such as PHP. However, the HTTP specification states that 403 should only be used when authorization will not help. The 401 Unauthorized code is a better choice for this situation

If you are encountering a Forbidden error chances are that the action or resource you attempted to access has been forbidden such as trying to view the contents of a directory versus accessing a specific file inside of the directory.

For example many sites do not allow the directory listing such as in the /images directory so when you attempt to access the directory through your browser, you may be met with a forbidden error whereas if you load an image directly within the directory such as /images/logo.gif you can see the image.

Other causes of the 403 error can be permissions issues or .htaccess syntax issues so if you're the webmaster and you see this error, you should check your file and directory permissions and the syntax of your .htaccess file(s) to ensure they are correct and appropriate.

If none of the above are causing your access issue, your website may be reaching concurrency (max requests per second) limits. Reducing connections or upgrading your account to premium will resolve this.