301, 302, 307, 308: which redirect to use when

Redirects send people and search engines from one URL to another, and the status code tells them how to treat the move. Pick the wrong one and Google may keep showing the old address in results, or a form submission may be resent as a plain page request and lose its data. Four codes cover nearly every case on a marketing site, and two questions decide between them: is the move permanent, and must the request method stay the same?

What do 301, 302, 307 and 308 mean?

301 and 308 are permanent; 302 and 307 are temporary. Within each pair, the difference is the request method. For historical reasons, HTTP lets a browser change a POST into a GET when it follows a 301 or 302. The 307 and 308 codes were added later to make method-preserving redirects unambiguous.

• 301 Moved Permanently: the page has a new permanent address, and future requests should use it.
• 308 Permanent Redirect: the same meaning, but the original method and body are kept, so a POST stays a POST.
• 302 Found: the page is temporarily at another address; keep using the original URL.
• 307 Temporary Redirect: temporary, and the browser must not change the method.

You may also meet 303 See Other, used after a form submission so that refreshing the confirmation page doesn't send the form again. It belongs to application logic rather than to moving pages.

How does Google treat each one?

Google treats 301 and 308 the same way, and 302 and 307 the same way. A permanent redirect is a strong signal that the target should become canonical, so the new URL replaces the old one in search results. A temporary redirect isn't used as that signal, so Google keeps showing the source URL, although the target can still be indexed if other signals point to it. Google still asks you to use the code that matches your intent, because other clients, such as other search engines, can benefit from the difference.

Which redirect should you use for a moved page?

Use a 301 for any page that has moved for good: a renamed service page, two articles merged into one, a new domain. Google recommends a permanent server-side redirect whenever you want the URL shown in search results to change, and permanent redirects only when you're sure the redirect won't be reverted.

A 308 is just as good for Google, and some platforms choose it for you. In Next.js, a redirect with permanent: true returns 308 and permanent: false returns 307, specifically to preserve the method. For ordinary page visits, which use GET, 301 and 308 behave the same.

When is a temporary redirect right?

Use 302 or 307 when the original URL is coming back. Google's example is a service that is temporarily unavailable: you send visitors to a page explaining what is happening without replacing the original URL in search results. Choose 307 over 302 when the URL also receives form posts or API calls, so the method survives.

Check your server's defaults too. On Apache, the Redirect directive sends a 302 unless you add permanent or 301, so a rule written without it is temporary:

# Apache: permanent, not the 302 default
Redirect permanent "/old-page" "https://www.example.com/new-page"

# Nginx
location = /old-page {
  return 301 https://www.example.com/new-page;
}

How do you avoid redirect chains and loops?

Point every old URL straight at its final destination. Googlebot follows up to 10 redirect hops, but Google advises redirecting directly and, where that isn't possible, keeping a chain ideally to three hops at most, because each hop adds latency and not every browser handles long chains. A loop, where URLs keep redirecting to each other, breaks the page completely; browsers give up and show an error.

• When you add a redirect, update older rules that pointed at the old URL, so A goes straight to C.
• Change your own internal links to the final URL. Each redirect is an extra request, so links shouldn't depend on one.
• Redirect to the closest equivalent page. Sending many old URLs to the home page confuses users and may be treated as a soft 404.
• Keep permanent redirects for at least a year, which Google says gives it time to transfer signals, and longer while people still use the old links.
• Test a new permanent rule before relying on it. The HTTP standard makes 301 and 308 responses cacheable by default, so a browser may remember a mistake.

Where to start

Export your redirect rules and check three things: permanent moves really return 301 or 308, no rule points at another redirect, and nothing defaults to the home page. If a platform move is coming, our guide to moving from WordPress to Webflow without losing rankings covers URL mapping, and our SEO and AI search service can audit your redirects.