Vanity URL's and http codes

[Shawn_Huber]

We have a vanity URL that as recommended is using 301 http code, however it has been discovered the destination URL needs to be updated which creates a problem since most browsers and search engines cache 301 redirects.

Is there a good way to figure out when a vanity should be a 301 vs 302/307?

If all vanity URL's should use 301, what is the proper way of updating the destination URL?

Is it a good rule of thumb that if the vanity URL is only going to be temporary and down the road could have a new destination URL to use 302, and all others 301?

Cheers,

[DanDeceuster]

Like I said in the last paragraph, if this is temporary, 302 redirect the original destination URL to the new destination URL as well as the redirecting URL to the new destination. If these changes are permanent, make them 301 instead of 302 redirects.

[Shawn_Huber]

That does answer my question partly. How do you handle the cached URL for the original 301 that points to the invalid URL?

Example. www.bob.com/hello points to www.bob.com/directory/folder/file.aspx

It needs to now point to www.bob.com/directory/folder2/file2.aspx

If browsers and search engines cache the first 301 since it's meant to be permanent, visitors that have been to the first URL will not get passed off to the new one.

[DanDeceuster]

Let me make sure I understand you. You have a vanity URL like bit.ly or something. It redirects to your website which is bitly.com or something like that. This redirect is a 301 permanent redirect.

Are you asking if bitly.com changed what you should do with the redirect? That's how I understood the question. So say bitly.com now goes to bitly.com/new or something along those lines.

If this is the case, all you want to do is change your 301 redirect of bit.ly to the new destination URL and keep it a 301. That is, unless bitly.com/new is only a temporary URL. If it will be reverting back to bitly.com then don't do that.

Instead, when you redirect bitly.com to bitly.com/new use a 302 redirect, keeping the 301 from bit.ly to bitly.com in tact. Hopefully that answers your question. Let me know if your scenario is different.