301 redirects reverting to 302 redirects

[Tone_Agency]

We recently built a new website with a new site structure. To prevent there being a load of 404's I redirected the old pages to the new relevant pages with 301 redirects.

A few days later the SEOmoz crawl report alerted me to a load of 302 redirects. When I looked into this for some reason all of the 301 redirects I set up are reverting to 302 redirects.

I did a test by 301 redirecting a made up URL to an existing page and the same thing happens - it 302 redirects.

I can't find any settings in WordPress to possibly explain why this is happening. Has anyone got any ideas why this could be?

[Devanur-Rafi]

Hi, first of all we need more info about the method you used to set the 301 re-directs. Coming to your question regarding 301 re-directs in Wordpress, you can use any of the 301 re-direct plugins like, 'Simple 301 Redirects' etc.

If your website is hosted on Apache server (Linux hosting), you can use the .htaccess file to do the page-to-page 301 re-directs. I am not sure if you have already done that.

If you have used the re-direction plugin named, "Redirection", then there seems to be an issue. However, make sure that you use the accurate tools to check the HTTP header status messages like the following one:

http://www.webconfs.com/http-header-check.php

Regards,

Devanur.

[Tone_Agency]

Hi Rafi

Firstly thanks for taking the time to help me out here - really appreciate it.

We've tried two plugins, "Redirection" and "Simple 301 Redirects" and both are sending 302 redirect headers. Using the chrome network inspector it's definitely sending the 302 headers.

The server is a Windows server, so not Linux/Apache.

I hope this information helps

Thanks

[Devanur-Rafi]

No problem my friend and thanks for the info. Wordpress plugins, especially the re-direction ones are not at all dependable in IIS environment. Let me cut the crap and send you straight to the solution. Here you go...

http://www.make-awesome.com/2010/03/301-redirects-with-iis7-rewrite-module/

I wish you good luck.

Regards,

Devanur Rafi and yes, you can call me Rafi.

[Tone_Agency]

Brilliant Rafi!

We'll get to work on it - I'll let you know how we get on. Thanks!!!

[Devanur-Rafi]

Sure my friend. Please go ahead and you will get this done for sure!!

Best regards,

Devanur Rafi.