301 vs 302

[KathleenDC]

Hello everyone!

I'm working with a site right now that is currently formatted as subdomain.domain.net. The old version of the site was formatted as domain.net, with domain.com and several other variants redirecting to the current format, subdomain.domain.net.

All of these redirects are 302, and I'm wondering if I should have all these changed to 301. Many of our old backlinks go to the old format of domain.net and i know the juice isn't being passed through, but i was wondering if there is any reason why you may want a 302 over a 301 in this case?

Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks!

[becole]

Paul, that's a good question. Whenever you use a 302 redirect, that's actually a "temporary" redirect, and Google deals with those redirects differently than they do 301 Permanent Redirects.

302 Temporary Redirects should really only be used in cases when you're temporarily redirecting a URL to another one--and you then plan on un-redirecting it back. So, if a site is down for the weekend, you might 302 redirect certain pages elsewhere and then unredirect them.

If you're moving your site to another location, you're permanently moving it. So, you'd use a 301 redirect. Google typically passes the all or most of the "link juice" from one URL to another through the 301 redirect. So,  you'll want to use a 301 redirect when you move to a new location.

For more details, see Google's help page here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93633?hl=en

And if you're moving from one domain to another, then you'll want to learn about the Google Change of Address Tool: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/83106?hl=en

To answer your question, though, most likely you'll want to use a 301. There aren't really any reasons why you'd not want to use a 301 redirect.

[GastonRiera]

Hi Paul,

What Bernadette says has a lot of truth.
Even, there's been some recently changes in 3xx redirection rules. And a great professional (Cyrus Shepard) wrote a nice piece of text about that in the Moz Blog.

Check it out! 301 Redirects Rules Change: What You Need to Know for SEO

In my opinion, historically 301 are better than 302, if you can set 301, do it.

Best Luck.
GR.