Difference between Redirect 301 and 302: Which One to Choose

1. Difference between Redirect 301 and 302: Which One to Choose To make the right choices about which redirect is suitable for your website, you can seek the assistance of a digital marketing firm in Long Island. In this modern digital market place, businesses need a website to be successful. It is the backbone of your business that supports all your digital marketing efforts. A website gives the consumer a clear idea of your brand and what types of products or services you are providing. A Long island web design company can help you create an optimized and engaging website that can drive more customers to your company. Once the website is functional, it has to be optimized for the search engines. There are many that help a website to secure the top position on the search engine results page. Redirect is an SEO factor that is important for a website. Redirects are a way to forward visitors and search engines to a different URL than the one they requested. Redirects play an important role within SEO, so it’s important to know what types of redirects there are, when to use which ones, and how they measure up against one another. Web developers redirect from one URL to another for the following reasons: •When there is a change in business name •When two websites are merged •Landing page split testing for marketing test •To direct traffic towards recently updated content •To direct content to a recently updated domain name. Redirects are important for both users and search engine when content has moved: •For visitors: Every website aims at offering a great user experience for the visitors. When the content is moved, the users should be redirected to the relevant URL seamlessly, avoiding a hit with a 404 page. •For search engines: When content is moved, you want the search engine to know the content is moved. With a redirect, you can communicate how you want them to crawl and index your website and it is important for your SEO performance as well. The various HTTP protocol 3xx series codes are the most common way to redirect a web page and are embedded in the HTML of the page. There are many types of redirects that can be implemented for various uses. However, web developers are still confused which type of redirect is best for SEO -- 301 or 302. It is important to understand that the two redirects have different purposes and a wrong decision can make a huge negative impact on your SEO efforts as well as your website.

2. 301 Redirect and How to Use It A 301 redirect is a server side redirect that lets the search engine know that the website is removed permanently. It is used to redirect users from a previous URL to current URL, while signalling to search engines that the previous URL’s content has been permanently moved to the current URL. It’s worth noting that browsers will often cache 301 redirects because of their permanent nature, so keep that in mind when you’re dealing with redirects. Sometimes people tend to leave outthe “www” when typing the website names. In such cases a permanent redirect will guarantee that the users will reach the right website. 301 redirect can be also used when two websites are being merged together and you want to ensure that links to outdated URLs are redirected to the correct pages. 302 Redirect and How to Use It A 302 redirect is also a server side redirect that lets search engines know that the page is removed temporarily. This also redirects users from a previous URL to the current URL. A 302 redirect is used to send users to your new site for a short period of time. A 302 redirect is only used if you want to test a new page and get some consumer feedback without affecting your ranking from the original page. How 301 and 302 Redirects Impact SEO A 301 redirect is used by Google to remove old pages from their index. It is important to note that any time you move a page from one URL to another, it will take search engines some time to notice the change and see any potential impact/change in rankings. A 302 redirect is similar to 301 but only for short period of time. In the case 302 redirect, the original page remains indexed in Google and no value is moved to the new URL because Google knows this is just temporary and you can retain the ranking, traffic value and authority that page might have. The problem arises when people don’t know the difference between redirect 301 and redirect 302. SEO specialists have found that if 302 redirect is in place for a longer period of time the search engine starts regarding redirect 302 as redirect 301 due to its permanent nature. Similarly, if you choose redirect 302 instead of redirect 301 then you will be creating a new website and not transferring the value that you achieved so far. Implementing Redirects As per Google’s norms to implement 301 redirect for your website, you will need access to the server’s .htaccess file. You can also refer to Apache tutorial and URL Rewriting Guide. If your site uses WordPress, then you can make use of plug-ins like: •Simple 301 redirect: This works only for 301 redirects •SEO redirection: This helps users create both 301 and 302 redirects •Redirection: This plug-in is for 301 redirect and 404 errors. 404 error code

3. Apart from 301 redirect and 302 redirect it is important to know about 404 error code. 404 is not a redirect but an error code which means not found. 404 error code occurs when a web page is deleted from a site and a server but links to the page remain the same. When a user types in or clicks on the link, they’re directed to a 404 “Page Not Found” error message. This can potentially have a negative impact on your SEO performance since it doesn’t provide an ideal user experience and it leads your customers to a dead page. Here 301 and 302 redirects can be useful as they can solve the problem of “page not found” error from occurring. Log in to Google Search Console and navigate to the coverage sections to find out 404 errors. This will allow you to click on the 404 section and identify all the URLs resulting in these errors. It is always best to check this report regularly and set up the proper redirects where applicable. Which One to Choose If you wish to move a website or a web page then the best option is to use redirect 301 and redirect 302 is useful for a temporary move. If you are concerned about losing rank by implementing redirect 301, the solution is to not change the domain and not become financially reliant on rankings. To make the right choices suitable for your website, you can seek the assistance of a digital marketing firm in Long Island. (631) 494-3324