Can GET requests in web applications be considered safe for repeat calls without side effects?

GET requests in web applications are generally considered idempotent and safe to repeat without side effects. This means that repeating a GET request should not change the server state or data. For example, a request to retrieve a list of users should not modify the database.

However, in practice, it depends on the server implementation. If a GET request causes a state change (e.g., increases a view counter), then it is no longer safe to repeat. Therefore, GET should be used only for data retrieval, while operations that change state should be done via POST, PUT, DELETE, and other methods.

Example of a proper GET request:

GET /api/users HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com

This simply returns a list of users and does not modify data.