rate limiting
A server's answer to a client asking too fast, usually HTTP 429, sometimes a silent slowdown. For measurement the honest consequence is unverifiable: a 429 says the client was throttled and nothing about what it would have received.
What rate limiting means
A scanner that records a throttled fetch as a refusal has invented a finding, and one that retries until it gets through has measured a different moment than the one it reports.
What rate limiting does not show
The verdict for a throttled path is that it was not measured.
Terms this definition uses
Definitions that name rate limiting
Related terms in Delivery and rendering
What arrives on the wire, and what only exists after something else runs.
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Questions about rate limiting
What is rate limiting?
A server's answer to a client asking too fast, usually HTTP 429, sometimes a silent slowdown. For measurement the honest consequence is unverifiable: a 429 says the client was throttled and nothing about what it would have received.
What does rate limiting not show or guarantee?
For measurement the honest consequence is unverifiable: a 429 says the client was throttled and nothing about what it would have received. The verdict for a throttled path is that it was not measured.
Which area of the glossary does rate limiting belong to?
Delivery and rendering: What arrives on the wire, and what only exists after something else runs.
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