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SEO: 301 or 302 Redirects?

As I learn more about search engine optimization, I’ve been reading a lot about domains and URL redirects and am confused about redirection (or domain/URL redirects). I’ve heard of both 301 and 302. Can someone explain to me the difference between a 301 redirect and a 302 redirect, and tell me the implications with respect to search engine optimization? 


Which should I be using?

Also, are there any tools online that I can use to test a URL and see if it has a 301 or 302 in place?

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5 answers

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michaelcyger [ Admin ]

There are two types of redirections: 301 and 302.


When in doubt, you should use a 301 redirect.

There are some benefits to using a 302 redirect, but in almost all cases you will want a 301. Enough said on this topic because only a very small percentage of users will need advanced information on using a 302 redirect and how the major search engines handle them slightly differently.

The 301 redirect is SEO friendly

The 301 redirection is interpreted by search engines as a “moved permanently” redirect. To a search engine, this means “you requested a specific URL-A, but it has forever moved to this other URL-B, so go to URL-B and update your links so you don’t visit the URL-A again.” 

The 301 redirect is favored by those who care about search engine optimization because the 301 redirect is generally understood to pass through link ranking signals like inbound links and PageRank. Because search engines know this and generally operate in this manner, the 301 redirect is used by many URL shortening services like bit.ly, tinyurl.com, etc.

[301 redirects are detailed in RFC 2616: “The requested resource has been assigned a new permanent URI and any future references to this resource SHOULD use one of the returned URIs.”]

The 302 redirect is a different story

The 302 redirect basically says that "you requested URL-A but it can temporarily be found at URL-B, and every time you need URL-A come to me and I’ll tell you where to find URL-B because URL-B may change over time."

Because URL-B (the final destination) will change from request to request, it’s impossible for search engines to carry through

Because the destination of the 302 redirect might change from request to request, it is difficult for search engines to pass through link ranking signals like inbound links and PageRank, so nothing is passed through.

[302 redirects are detailed in RFC 2616: “The requested resource resides temporarily under a different URI. Since the redirection might be altered on occasion, the client SHOULD continue to use the Request-URI for future requests.”]

How to check a redirect

There are a bunch of SEO tools on the web to help you double-check you’re doing things correctly. I did a quick search on Google and the #1 result was from Internet Officer: Redirect Checker.

Using this tool, I can check on the redirect that I setup for http://Page2Sucks.com. In the case of this website, I want all traffic to go through the standard-formatted http://www.Page2Sucks.com URL (note the “www.” in front of the domain), so I set up a redirect for anyone typing in “page2sucks.com” into their browser’s address bar.

When I entered my short domain into the redirect checker tool (link above), here’s what I found:

Checked link: http://page2sucks.com

Type of redirect: 301 Moved Permanently

Redirected to: http://www.page2sucks.com


This is exactly the case I wanted to see — a 301 redirect.
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hugo
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If you’re checking things like redirects the Firebug add-on to Firefox is very useful.

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  • 1

hugo [ Editor ]

Some useful links re. redirects and how to use them from Google’s Webmaster Central blog:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008_11_01_archive.html
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html

The second link is all about the use of canonical links, rather than 301/302 status codes, but this is a related issue. As outlined above with the Page2Sucks.com example, Google is case sensitive and respects the difference between different subdomains and things like trailing slashes. By default, Google will see all these as different pages, which can cause problems with having search reputation split across a number pages. In some cases (as above) a 301 permanent redirect is appropriate. In other situations (such as having optional query string parameters) it doesn’t make sense to redirect, but you want the search engine to ‘see’ the page as the same page – in this case the ‘canonical’ URL link will help.

The best reference of all on this (and everything else) is Google’s own SEO report card – essential reading – http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/03/googles-seo-report-card.html

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seanmchugh1 [ Editor ]

A 301 redirect is permanent (meaning you would want to bookmark the destination address, because it would be the page’s new permanent location), while a 302 redirect is temporary.

The implication with any redirect is possibly losing your hard-earned SEO rank. You should not move your pages or change their URLs (which is what redirects are done for) unless you absolutely have to, or unless there is some ultimate gain from it (such as making your URL less complicated). Then, if you ever have to, you must take important precautions and crucial checks to preserve your SEO rank. This usually involves updating any incoming links to your page, which would require you to contact every webmaster who has linked to you and ask them to update their links. Depending on how responsive they are, this can either be a smooth process or very frustrating.

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matthurst

I was recently curious about this as well, exploring the implications of 301 redirects from url shorteners like Bitly.  Suffice to say my own research confirms what you’ve heard from Sean and Michael that 301s are preferable in this case.  When used appropriately the site redirects should show up simply as if another inbound link to your domain.

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itdesign cologne germany

For SEO the 301 redirect is the best. As explained before, it tells the Browser/Crawler that the Page has permanently moved to the new redirect-domain.

For your Linkpower it means, that if it’s a backlink, it will be 100%-ly transferred to that new Domain. So you can perfectly use it if you restructure a blog, website or whatever.

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