302 from landingspage to language page

[WeAreDigital_BE]

Hi Everyone,

A client of us has a Belgian website in 2 different languages, in French and in Dutch.
We make use of hreflang tags, so each user gets to see the website in their preferred language.

The landingspage on the website however, let's say www.example.be, has a 302 redirect to the French version of the website (www.example.be/fr/). And Dutch users get to see the Dutch version (www.example.be/nl/) of the website when they browse to www.example.be .

Now, I want to get rid of the 302 redirect. Should I replace it to a 301 redirect, without sending every user automatically to one of the 2 versions? Should I just remove the redirect? Or should I just leave it this way?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Jens

[invechseo]

301 use as permanent move to other pages while 302 means move the page temporarily. If you are focusing on the main site which is www.example.be search engine recognized and index the www.example.be . About the other links popularity might be divided between the two urls. If concerned about losing rankings due to a 301, the solution is not to change a domain, and not to become financially reliant on rankings. In the real world, businesses avoid changing their names because it can appear shady.

[WeAreDigital_BE]

Thanks for your answer.

It's not about changing the business name, but I guess it's just to guide people to the right version of the website. So there is a 302 redirect but I don't know the exact purpose of that. I want to get rid of it, and I am looking for the best solution, without any loss in UX or rankings.