What Is a 302 Redirect? Comparing 302 vs. 301 Redirects

 

Like many businesses, you’re going to update and change your website to help it stay current and continually drive new traffic to your website. As you work on your website, you may need to set up temporary redirects (or a 302 redirect) to new pages so you don’t lose traffic.

What is a 302 redirect?

A 302 redirect is a temporary redirection to a new page while working on another page. These redirects are used to send traffic to another page while the current page is unavailable. Using a temporary redirect enables you to maintain keyword rankings and link value for the page.

302 vs. 301 redirects: What’s the difference?

The biggest difference is that 301 redirects are permanent redirects to a new page, while 302 redirects are temporary. If you intend to keep the original page after making changes, use a 302 redirect. If you permanently remove a page, you’ll want to use a 301 redirect.

When you should use a 302 redirect: 4 common use cases

Now that you have the answer to “what is a 302 redirect,” you may wonder why you need to use one.

Here are some reasons why you’d use a 302 temporary redirect:

You’re redesigning pages on your website

Revamping your webpages? If so, you’ll want to use a 302 redirect.

You don’t want to drive traffic to your page while you’re busy making tweaks and updates — it may look messy while changing and updating different elements on the page.

To ensure your audience doesn’t see your pages until they’re polished, you’ll want to use a 302 redirect to temporarily redirect them to another page.

You want to test pages to improve conversion

Another reason to use a temporary redirect is if you’re testing your pages, sometimes as part of conversion rate optimization (CRO) services. When you test pages, like landing pages, you want to see which version delivers a better experience for your audience.

You can set up a redirect to send a certain percentage of traffic to your new test page so you can compare performance. Since it’s a temporary experiment, it ensures your original page maintains its value.

You have a broken page on your website

At some point in time, you may have a broken page on your website. So, while figuring out what went wrong and how to fix it, you’ll want to use a 302 redirect to guide people to another page.

You can use this redirect to indicate that there was a problem and that the user will be redirected to a new page. It’s a simple way to communicate with users who may come across broken pages.

You have a temporary promotion happening

If you have a special, limited-time sale happening, you can use a redirect to direct people to the page with the sale. It’s a great way to drive traffic to your sales so you can boost your revenue.

If someone shops for kitchenware, for example, and you’re having a sale, you can create a dedicated sale page and redirect them to it when they visit your kitchenware.

Just remember to remove the redirect when the sale is over since it’s only temporary.

How does a temporary redirect impact my SEO?

Before you implement 302 redirects, you want to know how it impacts your SEO. Do 302 redirects cause harm to your SEO rankings or does it keep things the same?

Using a temporary redirect is a good way for you to preserve your link equity and ranking while you make changes on other pages.

302 redirects will keep your SEO the same, as long as you implement them correctly. You only want to use these redirects as a temporary solution, not a permanent one.

Using a temporary redirect is a good way for you to preserve your link equity and ranking while you make changes on other pages. Your SEO won’t be negatively impacted for the short period that you’re using the redirect.

In fact, not using a 302 redirect (when you need one) will harm your page’s SEO.

Without the redirect in place, you risk your pages getting indexed as you’re working on them. That means your pages could get indexed while having missing content and broken elements on them.

There is also a risk that, if you don’t implement the 302 redirect correctly, you could see negative effects to your SEO. These impacts would only be temporary as you fix the issues with it.

Generally, as long as you use 302 redirections in appropriate scenarios, it will help you maintain your SEO until you’ve polished your pages.

Expand your SEO knowledge

302 redirects are just one aspect of SEO that you need to know to optimize your website for search engines. Want to keep expanding your knowledge? Check out our SEO blog to learn about all SEO topics from A-Z!