I see a lot of customers ask what the difference is between a 301 permanent redirection and a 302 temporary redirection. Both redirections are available to be used from a cPanel control panel and it can be confusing as to which one is the right choice. Use of common logic leads most people to believe that a temporary(302) redirection only lasts for a set period of time, and that after the period of time has expired the redirection no longer exists – this is entirely incorrect, so no if you have setup a temporary redirection you don’t have to worry about it disappearing one day.
Honestly I have never come across a situation where a 302 redirection is needed – how often is it that you only need to move a page temporarily? For me that has been never, most times I use a redirect is when I don’t need to see the old page whatsoever. So for the sake of simplicity, and if you don’t want to find out how it all works and the reasons behind my recommendations then you can stop reading here and just remember to use 301(Permanent) redirections whenever you need one.
Whenever you visit a page on a website, the web server generates a HTTP status code. This status code is usually 200 which means that file was found and served to the client without error. The only difference between a temporary and a permanent redirection is the HTTP status code which is generated by the web server, a permanent redirection generates a 301 status code and a temporary redirection generates a 302 status code. A 301 redirect is permanent, they mean that the original page has moved and they inform any search engine or user agent(browser) that comes to the page to update the URL in their database. A 302 redirect on the other hand informs the search engine or user agent(browser) that the requested resource resides temporarily in another location, but it can still be found at the requested URI.
These codes actually affect how search engines treat your site and in turn how they index your site. Incorrect codes can actually cause a search engine such as Google to index your site in a negative way, so it is important that you get it right. Not only do these codes tell search engines how to treat the site, they can also cause your web browser to treat your site in different ways.
Have you ever tried implementing a redirect via the control panel or through .htaccess and even after changing the redirect or removing it, it still doesn’t change in your browser even after multiple refreshes? Usually when this happens you need to close your browser and re-open it again. In most cases the reason this occurs is because you have implemented a permanent redirect and your browser has read the status code(301) and from then on whenever you visit the original location, your browser doesn’t even check the files it just goes straight to the redirects destination. Why does it do this? Because the browser knows that the redirection is permanent hence the redirection shouldn’t ever change, so there is no need for it to even request the original file from the web server, it knows it will only get redirected anyway. Closing and reopening your browser should rectify the problem because the browsers cache is cleared, so the next time you put in the URL of the original resource your browser will actually request the file.
I generally advise that if you are going to setup a redirect, you should use a 301 redirect. This is because of how a 301 redirect affects search engines as opposed to 302 redirects. There are a few reasons that make a 302 redirect a bad choice when it comes to search engines, these are:
- 302 redirects are commonly used by spammers to get more of their domains up in search engine results. Hence Google and other search engines don’t like this redirection technique, and it can really hurt your page rank.
- A page redirected to by a 302 has to generate it’s own popularity, whereas with 301 redirects your URLs maintain their link popularity. If you set up a 302 redirect, Google and other search engines that determine popularity ratings automatically assume that the link is eventually going to be taken down. Because after all, it’s only a temporary redirect. So the new page doesn’t have any of the link popularity associated with the old page. It has to generate that popularity on its own.
For more reasons you should research the topic more thoroughly – it’s beyond the scope of this tutorial to provide every reason why I don’t recommend 302 redirects. Hope I’ve helped!