What is a Redirect?

A redirect is a way to send both users and search engines to a different URL from the one they originally requested. Below are descriptions of some of the commonly used types of redirects you may encounter on websites or when browsing through your search console's detailed reports.

301 Moved Permanently

A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect. 301 refers to the HTTP status code for this type of redirect. In most instances, the 301 redirect is the best method for implementing redirects on a website.

302 Found  / Moved Temporarily

Some of Google's employees have indicated that there are cases where 301s and 302s may be treated similarly, but evidence suggests that the safest way to ensure search engines and browsers of all kinds give full credit is to use a 301 when permanently redirecting URLs.

307 Moved Temporarily

A 307 redirect is the successor of the 302 redirect. While the major crawlers will treat it like a 302 in some cases, it is best to use a 301 for almost all cases. The exception to this is when content is really moved only temporarily (such as during maintenance). Since it's essentially impossible to determine whether or not the search engines have identified a page as compatible, it is generally best to use a 302 redirect for content that has been temporarily moved.

Best Practice When Setting up Redirects

It is common practice to redirect one URL to another. When doing this, it is critical to observe best practices in order to maintain SEO value.

In general, the 301 redirect is preferable for both users and search engines. Serving a 301 indicates to both browsers and search engine bots that the page has moved permanently. Search engines interpret this to mean that not only has the page changed location, but that the content—or an updated version of it—can be found at the new URL. The engines will carry any link weighting from the original page to the new URL.

Be aware that when moving a page from one URL to another, the  search engines will take some time to discover the 301, recognize it, and credit the new page  with the rankings and trust of the original page. This process can be lengthier if search engines rarely visit the given web page, or if the new URL doesn't resolve properly.

Other options for redirection, like 302s, are poor substitutes, as they generally will not pass the rankings and search engine value like a 301 redirect will. The only time these redirects are good alternatives is if a webmaster purposefully doesn't want to pass link juice from the old page to the new.

Transferring content becomes more complex when an entire site changes its domain or when content moves from one domain to another. Due to abuse by spammers and suspicion by the search engines, 301s between domains sometimes require more time to be properly crawled and counted.