The 301 vs 302 redirect question is usually framed as a penalty: use a 302 and you leak ranking power. That framing is wrong, and it leads people to use 301s for moves that are genuinely temporary. Both redirects send visitors to the new URL. The difference is what they tell Google about which URL should be shown in search, and therefore which URL collects the signals.
What 301 vs 302 redirect tells Google
Google’s own documentation on redirects puts it plainly. Permanent redirects “show the new redirect target in search results”: the indexing pipeline uses the redirect as a signal that the target should be canonical. Temporary redirects “show the source page in search results”, and the pipeline “doesn’t use the redirect as a signal that the redirect target should be canonical.”
| Permanent (301, 308) | Temporary (302, 303, 307) | |
|---|---|---|
| URL shown in search results | The new target | The original source |
| Canonical signal to Google | Yes, the target should be canonical | No canonical signal from the redirect |
| Where link signals usually consolidate | Forward, to the new URL | Backward, to the old URL |
| Typical uses | Migrations, HTTP to HTTPS, merged pages, changed URLs | A/B tests, short promotions, location-based routing |
| If left in place long-term | Behaves as intended | Google may start treating it as permanent |
The link-signal row comes from Ahrefs’ analysis of 301 vs 302 redirects: with a 301, signals usually consolidate forward to the new URL; with a 302, backward to the old one. Neither is a loss. They are two different destinations.
The 302 penalty myth
The myth survives because it describes a real symptom with the wrong cause. Someone moves a page permanently, uses a 302 by mistake, and watches the new URL fail to rank. The new URL is not being penalised. Google is doing what the redirect asked: keeping the old URL as the one that represents the content, so the new one has nothing to rank with.
The opposite mistake is quieter and just as real. Use a 301 for a two-week promotion and Google may swap the permanent page out of the results for the promotional one, then have to swap it back when the promotion ends. You told it the move was permanent; it believed you.
There is also a safety net, and it is slow. If a 302 stays in place long enough, Google may decide it is really permanent and treat it as a 301. Ahrefs puts that at usually “a few weeks to a few months”. Waiting for Google to correct your redirect is not a strategy; it is weeks of the wrong URL in the results.
When to use a 301
Use a permanent redirect whenever the old URL is not coming back:
- Site migrations and domain changes. Every old URL should point to its closest new equivalent, not to the homepage.
- HTTP to HTTPS, and www to non-www. One version of the site should exist; the others redirect to it.
- Merged pages. When two articles compete for the same query and you combine them, the weaker URL redirects to the stronger. Our post on keyword cannibalization covers when merging is the right call.
- Changed slugs. A tidied URL structure, a renamed product, a corrected typo in a path.
- Pruned content with a clear successor. If a removed page has a close replacement, redirect to it. See content pruning for how to decide between redirecting and removing.
A 308 is the permanent equivalent that also preserves the request method; for ordinary page moves Google treats 301 and 308 the same way.
When a 302 is the right answer
A temporary redirect is correct when you want the original URL to stay the one Google shows, because it will be the live page again soon.
- A/B tests that send some visitors to a variant URL.
- Short promotions where a category page points to a sale page for a few days.
- Location- or language-based routing, where the main URL stays canonical and visitors are sent to a local version.
- Maintenance, where a page is briefly unavailable and will return at the same address.
307 is the temporary equivalent that preserves the request method, and 303 is mostly used after form submissions. For SEO purposes all three behave as temporary.
Checking the redirects you already have
Redirects tend to be added in a hurry and audited never. Start with the status codes themselves: the network tab of your browser’s developer tools shows each hop and its code, and any crawler will report them in bulk. You are looking for three things.
- 302s on permanent moves. Old migration rules and plugin defaults are the usual source. Change them to 301.
- Chains. A to B to C wastes a hop on every visit and every crawl. Point A straight at C. Migrations stacked on old migrations are where long chains come from, so check the legacy rules whenever you add a new one.
- Internal links to redirected URLs. Update the links to point at the final URL. A redirect is a fallback for links you do not control, not a substitute for fixing the ones you do. Our guide to internal linking covers the clean-up.
What a redirect cannot do
The limitation worth stating: a redirect passes signals to a new URL, but it cannot make the new URL relevant. Redirecting a page about one subject to a page about another, or sending everything to the homepage, gives Google a target that does not match what the old links were about, and visitors land somewhere that does not answer what they clicked for.
The same goes for backlinks. If the external links pointing at an old URL matter to you, a 301 to the closest equivalent page is the best you can do from your side. Where the link is from a site you have a relationship with, asking for the link to be updated removes the redirect from the path altogether. Check your backlinks report for the old URLs before a migration, not after, so the pages with the most links get the most care in your mapping.
Redirects are also one of the standard fixes for duplicate content, alongside canonical tags and noindex. Our post on whether duplicate content hurts SEO covers when each one fits. If the question is a domain-level move, the strategy archive collects the related posts.
Frequently asked questions
Does a 302 redirect pass PageRank?
Link signals with a 302 usually consolidate backward to the original URL rather than forward to the target. That is the intended behaviour for a temporary move, not a loss.
Will Google treat a long-running 302 as a 301?
It may. Ahrefs says this usually happens after a few weeks to a few months, but relying on it leaves the wrong URL in results in the meantime.
What is the difference between 301, 302 and 307?
301 is permanent. 302 and 307 are both temporary; 307 also preserves the request method. Google treats 302 and 307 the same way for search.
Should I redirect deleted pages to the homepage?
Not as a blanket rule. Redirect to the closest relevant page. If there is none, let the URL return a 404 or 410.
The takeaway A 301 says “this is the new home”; a 302 says “back soon”. Use each for what it says, fix chains and internal links, and redirect to the closest match, never to anywhere.
