Redirects are one of the most commonly used tools in SEO — and one of the most frequently misused. Using the wrong redirect type does not break your site visibly. It silently bleeds link equity, confuses Google about which URL to index, and can suppress rankings for months before anyone notices the problem.
What is a redirect in SEO terms?
A redirect is an instruction your server sends to browsers and search engine crawlers, telling them that a page has moved and they should go to a different URL instead. When Googlebot visits a redirected URL, it reads the redirect response and follows the new URL.
The redirect type you use (301, 302, or others) tells Google whether the move is permanent or temporary — and that distinction has direct consequences for how Google handles the link equity, indexing, and ranking signals associated with the original URL.
What is a 301 redirect and when should you use it?
A 301 redirect means "this page has moved permanently to a new location". It is the standard redirect for most SEO situations. When Google encounters a 301, it gradually transfers the original page's authority, backlinks, and ranking signals to the new destination URL.
Use a 301 redirect for:
- Permanently changing a page's URL (e.g. restructuring your site architecture)
- Migrating from HTTP to HTTPS — every HTTP page should 301 to its HTTPS version
- Changing domain names — redirect every page from the old domain to its equivalent on the new domain
- Deleting a page that has a replacement — redirect to the most relevant remaining page
- Merging two similar pages into one stronger combined page
- Canonicalising non-www to www (or vice versa) at the server level
How much SEO equity does a 301 redirect pass?
Google has stated that 301 redirects pass "close to" the full PageRank of the original URL. In practice, there is a minor equity loss through a redirect — but it is small enough to ignore for most purposes. The far bigger risk is using no redirect at all (serving a 404) when a page moves, which loses all equity entirely. A 301 redirect retains the vast majority of value from the original URL.
What is a 302 redirect and when should you use it?
A 302 redirect means "this page has temporarily moved to a different location". It signals that the original URL will come back, so Google keeps the original URL in its index rather than replacing it with the destination URL.
Use a 302 redirect for:
- A/B testing — temporarily showing users a different version of a page without affecting the canonical URL
- Maintenance pages — redirecting to a holding page while your main page is being rebuilt
- Seasonal content — temporarily replacing a page with a sale or event version that will revert after the event
- Genuine temporary unavailability — when the original URL will definitely return
What happens if you use a 302 when you should use a 301?
If you permanently move a page but use a 302 instead of a 301, Google may continue indexing the old URL rather than the new one, because a 302 signals the original will return. This means your new URL struggles to accumulate the authority it deserves, and users who find the old URL in search get redirected rather than landing directly on the canonical page. Over time, this creates ranking confusion that is surprisingly difficult to unwind.
What other redirect types exist in SEO?
Beyond 301 and 302, two other redirects appear regularly in SEO work:
- 307 redirect — the HTTP/1.1 equivalent of 302 for temporary redirects. Behaves the same as 302 for SEO purposes. Some frameworks use this automatically for temporary redirects.
- 308 redirect — the permanent equivalent of 307. Treated by Google similarly to a 301 for equity passing. Less commonly used but valid for permanent moves.
- Meta refresh redirect — an HTML-based redirect in the page head rather than a server-level response. Much slower than server redirects, passes equity less reliably, and is generally considered poor practice for SEO.
- JavaScript redirects — handled via JavaScript code. Googlebot can follow these during Wave 2 rendering, but they are significantly slower to process than server-level redirects and should be avoided for SEO-critical pages.
What is a redirect chain and why is it a problem?
A redirect chain occurs when URL A redirects to URL B, which then redirects to URL C. Each hop in the chain introduces additional equity loss, slows down the redirect for users, and can cause Googlebot to stop following the chain after a certain number of hops.
Redirect chains accumulate naturally over time as sites are updated and restructured. A page redirected once in 2022, then its destination redirected again in 2024, then that destination redirected again in 2026 creates a three-hop chain that loses equity at each step. Use our site scanner to identify redirect chains across your site and collapse them to direct single-hop 301 redirects.
How do you check if your redirects are working correctly?
The most reliable way is to scan your entire site with our broken link checker, which identifies redirect chains, redirect loops, and pages returning unexpected status codes. For individual URL checks, browser developer tools (Network tab) show the exact redirect chain including each response code. Google Search Console's Coverage report also flags redirect errors that are affecting indexing.
Summary
- A redirect sends users and Googlebot from one URL to another with a signal about whether the move is permanent or temporary
- 301 = permanent — passes equity, use for all permanent URL changes, domain migrations, and HTTPS upgrades
- 302 = temporary — preserves original URL in index, use only when the original URL will genuinely return
- Using 302 for permanent moves leaves equity stranded on the old URL and suppresses the new one's rankings
- Redirect chains lose equity at each hop — collapse multi-hop chains to direct single-step 301s
- Scan your site monthly with our scanner to catch redirect chains before they accumulate
Continue reading: What is bounce rate in SEO and does it affect your Google rankings?