Choosing the wrong redirect type is a small technical detail with genuinely significant consequences — using a temporary redirect for a permanent change, or vice versa, sends the wrong signal to search engines about how to treat the relationship between two URLs.
The Core Difference
A 301 redirect signals a permanent move, telling search engines to transfer ranking signals to the new URL and eventually treat it as the canonical destination. A 302 redirect signals a temporary situation, telling search engines the original URL should generally remain the canonical version despite pointing elsewhere for now.
When to Use a 301
Any genuinely permanent change — a renamed URL, a consolidated page, a domain migration — should use a 301, ensuring accumulated ranking signal transfers appropriately to the new, permanent destination.
When to Use a 302
Genuinely temporary situations — a page under short-term maintenance, a temporary promotional redirect, A/B testing a page variant — should use a 302, preserving the original URL's status as canonical since the redirect isn't meant to be permanent.
The Cost of Using the Wrong Type
Using a 302 for what's actually a permanent change means search engines may continue treating the old URL as canonical far longer than intended, delaying the transfer of ranking signal to the genuinely permanent new destination — a common, costly mistake during migrations handled without full technical understanding.
Auditing Your Existing Redirects
Reviewing your site's current redirects for genuinely permanent situations mistakenly implemented as 302s (or vice versa) can reveal an easy, valuable technical fix, particularly for any redirect that's been in place for an extended period despite being implemented as "temporary."
A Simple Rule of Thumb
If you genuinely expect the original URL to ever be restored or become relevant again, use a 302. If the change is meant to be permanent, use a 301 — when in doubt about a redirect's true permanence, defaulting to 301 for anything you don't specifically intend to reverse is generally the safer choice.
Verify your redirects are configured correctly. SeoWolf's Htaccess Redirect Generator and Get Source Code of Webpage help you implement and verify the correct redirect type for your situation.