HTTP Request Method 'POST' Confusion

submitted by CompleteDoubterII from self.Internet

I am confused about the 'POST' HTTP request method. Some search engines offer it as an alternative to the GET method with more privacy, but the documentation states that the POST method asks the server to make whatever is in the request a subordinate of the resource URI. For example, it can be used to post to a bulletin board. How in the world would search engines use such a request? How does it even do what a GET request would?

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[–]h45erahje5r 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's mostly a convention, GET is for read-only requests for data, and POST is for things that change data. But this isn't really enforced by anything.

Search engines only want to make GET requests, because they don't want to modify data.

There's an infamous story where some solo programmer made a wiki where all the Delete links were GET requests. It worked fine for him, because he knew not to click it. But when BigSearchEngine started scraping his website, it also made GET requests for his Delete links, and deleted his whole wiki!

I think the story ends with him having backups, or BigSearch giving him the data they scraped, but I'm not actually sure of that lol

[–]Mnemonic 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

How in the world would search engines use such a request?

The way they retrieve your query, so not the result, but your query from you.

A better explanation than wiki: https://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_httpmethods.asp

Some other notes on GET requests:

GET requests can be cached

GET requests remain in the browser history

GET requests can be bookmarked

GET requests should never be used when dealing with sensitive data

GET requests have length restrictions

GET requests are only used to request data (not modify)

Some other notes on POST requests:

POST requests are never cached

POST requests do not remain in the browser history

POST requests cannot be bookmarked

POST requests have no restrictions on data length

TL;DR: Get is sending data via URL, Post in a 'data-packet'

I'm not sure if that's your question though, on what level do you want to have it explained?

[–]CompleteDoubterII[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Also posted this on Notabug.