301 vs 302 Redirects: When to Use Each

A 301 and a 302 redirect look exactly the same to a visitor, both send the browser from one URL to another, but they mean opposite things to Google. A 301 says the move is permanent and the new URL should inherit the old one’s ranking. A 302 says the change is temporary and the original URL should keep its place in the index. Choose the wrong one and you can either stall a page’s ranking transfer or accidentally freeze a temporary change in place.

The good news is that the rule for picking is simple once you know what each signal tells a search engine. Here is the plain-English difference, the situations each type is built for, and the one mistake that quietly costs sites their rankings.

What a 301 Redirect Means

A 301 is a permanent redirect. It tells browsers and search engines that the original URL is gone for good and everything should now point to the new one. Over time, search engines transfer the old page’s ranking signals to the destination, so the new URL can hold the position the old one earned.

Because it consolidates authority on the destination, the 301 is the workhorse of any site migration or cleanup. When you permanently move, rename, or merge a page, the 301 is what makes sure the equity you built does not evaporate with the old address.

What a 302 Redirect Means

A 302 is a temporary redirect. It tells search engines that the original URL is only away for a while and should stay in the index, because you intend to bring it back. Ranking signals are meant to stay with the original URL rather than flow to the temporary destination.

That makes the 302 the right tool when the redirect is genuinely short-lived. You are pointing visitors somewhere else for now without telling search engines to forget the original page. The moment the situation ends, you remove the redirect and the original URL is exactly where you left it.

When to Use a 301

Reach for a 301 whenever the change is permanent. The clearest cases are a page that has permanently moved to a new URL, a post whose slug you changed, two pages you merged into one, an old domain pointing to a new one, and the sitewide redirect from HTTP to HTTPS or from the non-www to the www version of your site.

In all of these, you want the destination to inherit the original’s ranking. The 301 is the only type that signals that intent without ambiguity. If you are cleaning up old content or restructuring your site, 301 is almost always the answer.

When to Use a 302

Use a 302 when the redirect should disappear later. A seasonal sale page that points to this year’s offer, an A/B test that temporarily routes traffic to a variant, a maintenance page shown while you fix something, or a region-based detour you plan to remove are all good fits.

The shared thread is that you want the original URL to keep its ranking because it is coming back. A 302 protects that. Using a 301 in these cases would tell search engines to permanently shift authority to a page you intend to retire, which is the mirror image of the mistake described next.

The Mistake That Costs Rankings

The most common redirect error is using a 302 for a move that is actually permanent. It happens easily, because many tools and server defaults produce a 302 unless you specify otherwise, and the visitor experience is identical, so nothing looks wrong.

Under the hood, though, a 302 tells search engines to keep favoring the old URL. Ranking signals do not transfer the way they should, and the new page struggles to take the old one’s place. Sites can lose weeks of progress to a redirect that was one digit away from correct. Whenever a move is permanent, confirm the redirect is a 301, not a 302.

Setting the Right Type in WordPress

WordPress does not let you choose a redirect type out of the box, which is why so many redirects end up as whatever a plugin or server default produced. The fix is to use a tool that makes the type explicit per rule. DevDome Redirect Manager lets you set 301, 302, 307, or 308 on each rule, so a permanent move is a clean 301 and a temporary detour is a deliberate 302.

It also keeps redirected pages cache-safe, so a stale cache never sends someone to the wrong target, and it tracks clicks per rule so you can see which redirects actually carry traffic. If you are not sure what a given URL currently returns, run it through a free redirect checker first, then set the rule with the type you actually intend.