Which redirect should you use: 301, 302, 307 or 308?

Permanent and temporary redirects

Use a 301 or 308 when a URL has moved for good, and a 302 or 307 when the move is temporary. Google treats a permanent redirect as a strong signal that the new URL should be the canonical one shown in results, and a temporary redirect as only a weak signal, so the original URL usually stays in results.

301 Moved Permanently

Permanent. Browsers may change a POST request to GET when following it.

308 Permanent Redirect

Permanent. The request method and body are preserved.

302 Found

Temporary. Browsers may change a POST request to GET.

307 Temporary Redirect

Temporary. The request method and body are preserved.

For search, 301 and 308 are treated the same, as are 302 and 307. The difference matters for forms and APIs, where a POST must stay a POST.

Avoid chains and loops

A chain is a redirect that leads to another redirect, such as an old URL that points to an HTTP page that then redirects to HTTPS. Each hop adds delay for visitors and work for crawlers. Googlebot follows up to 10 hops before reporting an error; other crawlers may give up sooner, and their limits are not always documented.

A loop is a chain that leads back to itself, so the page never loads. Loops usually come from conflicting rules, such as one rule adding a trailing slash and another removing it.

Fix both by pointing every old URL directly at its final destination, and by reviewing redirect rules together after each migration or CMS change.

Update internal links to the final URL

Redirects exist for links you cannot change, such as links from other sites, old bookmarks and printed material. Inside your own site you control every reference, so point each one straight at the final URL:

• Navigation, footer and in-content links.
• Canonical tags and hreflang annotations.
• XML sitemap entries.
• Image and structured data URLs.

This removes a hop for every visitor and keeps your signals pointing at one URL.

Redirects in a site migration

1. Map every old URL to its closest equivalent on the new site, one to one wherever possible.
2. Do not send everything to the homepage. Google may treat redirects to an unrelated page as soft 404s, which means the old page is treated as gone rather than moved.
3. If a page has no equivalent, let it return 404 or 410.
4. Update internal links, canonicals and sitemaps to the new URLs.
5. For a domain change, use the Change of Address tool in Search Console once the redirects are live.
6. Keep the redirects in place for as long as possible; Google recommends at least one year.

JavaScript and meta refresh redirects

Server-side redirects that return a 3xx status code are the most reliable, because every crawler sees them without rendering the page. If you cannot configure the server, a meta refresh is the next option: Google treats an instant one as permanent and a delayed one as temporary.

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url=https://www.example.com/new-page/">

JavaScript redirects are the weakest choice. Google only sees them once it renders the page, and crawlers that do not run JavaScript may not follow them at all. Google suggests using them only when server-side and meta refresh redirects are not possible.