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SEO has a thousand facets, and as website operators the goal is to keep up with all of them for maximum organic ranking. However, as technology changes rapidly, and old wisdom often becomes outdated. When it comes to redirects, it’s important to understand the different types, as they may negatively affect the site’s search engine rankings. Incorrectly handled redirects can also cause a loss of traffic, according to Small Business Computing.
What’s the Difference between a 301 and a 302 Redirect?
For starters, let’s go over the definitions:
301 Redirect: This is a permanent move, not suitable for temporary changes. It’s generally used for bad links or for any outdated URLs need to be sent to a desired page; when there are several URLs used to access your site (a single URL as a preferred destination and others designated with 301 redirects to direct traffic to that preferred URL); or if you’ve moved your site to a new domain.
302 Redirect: This is a temporary change and redirects users and search engines to the desired page for a short time period until it’s removed. It may be shown as a 302 found (HTTP 1.1) or moved temporarily (HTTP 1.0). A 302 redirect can be done using a metatag or Javascript, rather than accessing server files and expending additional time and effort needed for a 301 redirect. A 302 is suitable if a company is doing A/B testing of different sites for marketing purposes, or updating a site and temporarily relocating visitors.
The Old Wisdom about 301 vs. 302
A quick surf around the Internet uncovers claims that a 301 redirect may result in a 10 to 15 percent loss in linking when it comes to SEO, which is why many Webmasters still routinely substitute 302 links. At other times, the conventional wisdom has been the opposite. In 2018, which is true?
Google search engine guru Matt Cutts has spent a great deal of time laying out the differences between 301 and 302. (Here’s a video that helps explain the basics.)
The conclusion is that there are tradeoffs that make them roughly equal.
“Use whatever is best for your purposes,” noted Cutts. “You don’t get to horde or conserve any more page rank if you use a 301, and likewise, it doesn’t hurt you if you use a 301.”
But What about Other Search Engines?
SearchEngineLand contributor Bryson Meunier recently confirmed that this is the case with Google, but pointed out that Google isn’t the only search engine in the world. Bing still prefers that Webmasters use a 301 permanent redirect when moving content, if the move is permanent.
“If you’re optimizing for users in China, where Google currently only has 1.5 percent of the market, you probably care more about what Baidu and Shenma say about redirects than Google or Bing, and you should use permanent redirects for permanently moved URLs just to be safe,” he wrote.
If you’re not sure what the best redirect strategy would be for your situation, contact Keyword Performance for a free consultation. We’re always happy to take time to educate our clients about SEO and the reasoning’s behind tactics.
As an ethical search engine optimization and social media company, it is our focus to build professional marketing strategies for long-term keyword placement on search engines and social media platforms for product, service, and company branding purposes. We develop solutions for companies to expose their websites on the search engines and help them to build brands on a local, national, and international levels.
