301 vs 302 Redirects: Which to Use and When

The difference between a 301 and 302 redirect comes down to one question:

Is the original URL coming back?

If the move is permanent, use a 301 redirect. If the original URL will return, use a 302 redirect.

For SEO, that distinction matters because Google treats permanent and temporary redirects differently when deciding which URL should become canonical.

A redirect code should reflect the actual situation, not whichever option sounds more SEO-friendly.

The Real SEO Difference Is Canonical Intent

Redirects do more than send users from one page to another.

They also give search engines information about which URL should represent the content.

Google describes permanent redirects as a strong signal that the destination should become canonical. Temporary redirects deliberately communicate something different: the original URL is expected to remain the main version.

A simple decision framework is:

Will the original URL come back?

No: use a permanent redirect, usually 301.

Yes: use a temporary redirect, usually 302.

That rule resolves most real-world cases.

The mistake is usually not choosing 301 instead of 308 or 302 instead of 307.

It is telling Google a move is temporary when the website has permanently abandoned the original URL, or signalling permanence during a short-lived test.

When to Use a 301 Redirect

Use a 301 when the URL change is intended to remain in place.

Common situations include:

permanently changing a page slug
moving from HTTP to HTTPS
consolidating www and non-www versions
changing domains
restructuring folders
merging duplicate or overlapping pages
permanently replacing an old page with a genuinely equivalent new page

Google recommends server-side permanent redirects such as 301 or 308 when URLs permanently move.

Example: Consolidating Overlapping Content

Suppose a website has three articles:

/technical-seo-audit
/seo-audit-checklist
/website-seo-audit-guide

All three increasingly compete for the same search intent.

The team decides to consolidate the useful information into one stronger page:

/technical-seo-audit-guide

The two retired pages should generally redirect permanently to the consolidated resource because they are not expected to return.

This type of consolidation should also be based on page relevance and intent, which is where on-page SEO and intent mapping matter.

A 301 is appropriate because the content relationship and URL change are permanent.

When to Use a 302 Redirect

Use a 302 when the redirect is genuinely temporary and the original URL is expected to return.

Common examples include:

temporary maintenance
short-term campaign routing
temporary product or service unavailability
experiments
A/B tests
brief routing changes

Google explicitly recommends temporary redirects for redirect-based A/B testing rather than permanent ones. Its website testing guidance recommends 302 redirects because they indicate that the test destination should not replace the original URL permanently.

Example: Temporary Maintenance

Suppose a booking page needs to be unavailable for several hours during a system upgrade.

The business temporarily redirects:

/book-consultation

to:

/maintenance

The booking page is coming back.

A 302 is therefore more appropriate than a 301.

Once the work is finished, remove the redirect and restore the original URL.

Does a 301 Redirect Lose PageRank?

No fixed percentage needs to be deducted from a 301 redirect.

Google's current site migration documentation explicitly states that 301 and other permanent redirects do not cause a loss in PageRank.

That makes older SEO claims such as “a 301 passes 90%” or “95% of link equity” unnecessary.

A permanent redirect can still produce disappointing SEO results, but the redirect code itself may not be the problem.

Common causes include:

redirecting to an irrelevant page
substantially weakening the destination content
redirect chains
incorrect canonicals
accidental noindex
broken internal links
migration errors
major architecture changes

A technically correct 301 cannot make an unrelated destination relevant.

Does a 302 Pass SEO Value?

The better question is not whether a 302 “passes value.”

The important difference is that a temporary redirect does not tell Google that the destination should permanently replace the source as canonical.

Google can still discover, crawl and sometimes index the destination through other signals.

But if a page has permanently moved, leaving a 302 in place creates unnecessary ambiguity about which URL should be treated as the long-term version.

That is why permanent migrations should use permanent redirects.

For a real temporary situation, a 302 is the correct technical and SEO choice.

What About 307 and 308 Redirects?

301 and 302 are the most familiar redirect codes, but 307 and 308 are increasingly common.

For Google Search:

307 is treated as temporary, similar to 302.
308 is treated as permanent, similar to 301.

The additional difference comes from HTTP behaviour.

According to MDN's HTTP redirect documentation, 307 and 308 preserve the original HTTP request method and body.

That matters more for application routes, APIs and forms than for a normal webpage request.

Practical Rule

For a normal webpage being requested with GET:

permanent move: 301
temporary move: 302

Where preserving POST, PUT or another request method matters:

permanent move: 308
temporary move: 307

There is no special SEO bonus for using 308 instead of 301.

Use the code that most accurately describes the HTTP behaviour you need.

When You Should Not Redirect at All

Not every deleted page needs a redirect.

If an old URL has a clear, genuinely relevant replacement, a permanent redirect usually makes sense.

If there is no meaningful replacement, returning a proper 404 Not Found or 410 Gone response may be more appropriate.

For example, imagine a discontinued one-time event page from four years ago.

If there is no current event or relevant successor, redirecting it to the homepage gives users a poor destination and tells search engines there is a relationship that may not actually exist.

Google's current site-move documentation specifically warns against sending many unrelated old URLs to one irrelevant page such as the homepage because they may be treated as soft 404s.

Use:

301/308: permanent relevant replacement
302/307: temporary replacement
404/410: removed with no meaningful replacement

This distinction becomes particularly important in large migrations.

Redirect Mistakes That Matter More Than 301 vs 302

Teams sometimes spend too much time debating redirect codes and not enough time checking where those redirects actually go.

Watch for these problems:

Irrelevant Destinations

An old service page should not redirect to the homepage simply because both URLs belong to the same company.

The new destination should serve substantially the same user need.

Redirect Chains

Avoid:

Page A → Page B → Page C → Page D

when Page A could redirect directly to Page D.

Google can follow redirect chains, but its current migration guidance recommends sending users and crawlers directly to the final destination where possible.

Redirect Loops

A redirect that eventually returns to a previous URL prevents users and crawlers from reaching a final page.

Broken Destinations

The final URL should not return:

another redirect
404
410
5xx error

Conflicting Canonicals

If an old URL redirects to Page B but Page B's canonical points to Page C, the website is giving search engines competing instructions.

Accidental Noindex

A redirect destination intended to rank should not carry an unintended noindex.

Old Internal Links

After a permanent URL move, internal navigation should link directly to the new URL rather than relying on the redirect forever.

This is particularly important during migration and replatforming SEO, where thousands of legacy references can remain after the redirect file has been deployed.

How to Verify a Redirect After It Ships

A redirect working in your browser is only the first check.

Use this QA list:

The source returns the intended 301, 302, 307 or 308 response.
The Location header points to the intended destination.
There is no unnecessary redirect chain.
There is no loop.
The final URL returns 200 OK.
The final page is indexable.
The canonical points to the intended final URL.
Internal links use the final URL directly.
XML sitemaps contain the final canonical URL rather than the redirected source.
Search Console eventually reflects the intended canonical relationship where applicable.

For large URL changes, use bulk crawling or scripts rather than testing redirects manually one at a time.

Google recommends keeping permanent redirects used in site moves for as long as possible, generally at least one year.

A good technical SEO and redirect QA process therefore checks the redirect, the destination, and the surrounding canonical and internal-link signals.

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301 vs 302 Redirects