TIMEOUT

The target site didn't respond within 15 seconds.

TIMEOUT fires when the page fetch runs past its 15-second budget. The DNS lookup happens before that clock starts. robots.txt has its own 5-second budget and the Onto SDK probe its own 8 seconds; neither causes TIMEOUT. Common causes are an overloaded origin, or a site that slows bots down instead of blocking them. Failed requests are refunded.

HTTP 504. Body always includes code: "TIMEOUT". Branch on code, never on the human-readable message — wording can change without notice; the code is the stable contract.

{
  "status": "error",
  "code": "TIMEOUT",
  "message": "Target site took too long to respond"
}

Retry once after a short pause. Errors are never cached, so the retry fetches the page again. If the same URL keeps timing out, the site is probably just slow; skip it.

Suggested handling in a Node client:

if (data.code === 'TIMEOUT') {
  // Retry once after a short pause, then give up on this URL.
  await sleep(2000);
  return retry();
}

See the full error index for the complete catalog with the handling switch statement covering every code at once.