Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How long is it safe to use a 302 redirect?
-
Hi All,
Lets assume there is site A and site B, both sites are live on the internet today as standalone businesses, but they sell very similar products.
Site B has built up some link equity and will eventually become the domain for site A due to an organisational re-brand.
For the time being however site A will remain, but site B needs to disappear temporarily, but not lose the link equity which has been built up against it.
My current thinking is to 302 redirect site B to site A such that users and search bots accessing site B will be redirected to site A whilst leaving the link equity that exists against site B fully intact and allowing us to continue to grow it should we wish to.
The question is, does anybody have a view on how long it is safe to use a 302 temporary redirect for? i.e., is 8-10 months to long.
Thanks,
Ben
-
Thanks this is the kind of 2nd opinion I was looking for
-
Hi Ryan,
Sure, I've had 302's in place for years on some domains myself but this was more a question around two parts I guess:
- Has anyone seen it potentially have an impact to the site the 302 is pointing at?
- Has anyone found that having a 302 in place for a long period of time then has an impact on that domains ability to get re-picked up and indexed should the 302 become a 200 again.
If you take the "best practice" conversation out of the equation then my own personal view is there is no real risk in having a 302 in place for a considerable period of time.
Ben
-
Ben,
What exactly do you mean by "safe"? You CAN permanently use a 302. There is nothing preventing a webmaster from using a 302 for years. I would never advise doing such, but you are certainly able to do it if you were so inclined.
-
Okay. After re-reading the question (with my eyes open this time) I understand that the fact that no link jiuce will be passed to Site A (from Site B) is not an issue, rather you don't want to lose the existing link equity when you switch Site B back on and then 301 redirect Site A to Site B?
So, with that in mind - there is no specified 'acceptable' time limit attached to a 302 redirect, so you should be able to redirect without fear of being penalised, regardless of duration.
This is mentioned elsewhere on SEOMoz here: http://www.seomoz.org/qa/view/9994/302-redirect-timeframe
This is an interesting read however: http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/007233.html - just to keep things edgy ;o)
-
I know what best practice is folks - the question is "how long is it safe to use a 302 temporary redirect?"
-
Don't 302 in this case. Infact, don't 302 if at all possible as it passes ZERO link juice - 301 for this and get 90%+ link juice passed on. It does sound counter intuitive - certainly based on the titles MOVED PERMANENTLY etc but it is the best practice in this instance.
301 Moved Permanently
A 301 Redirect is a permanent redirect which passes between 90-99% of link juice (ranking power) to the redirected page. 301 refers to the HTTP status code for this type of redirect. In most instances, the 301 redirect is the best method for implementing redirects on a website.
302 Found (HTTP 1.1) / Moved Temporarily (HTTP 1.0)
A 302 Redirect is a temporary redirect and passes 0% of link juice (ranking power) and in most cases should not be used. The Internet runs on a protocol called HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) which dictates how URLs work. It has two major versions, 1.0 and 1.1. In the first version 302 referred to the status code 'Moved Temporarily'. This was changed in version 1.1 to mean 'Found'.
Extract from
-
The question is, does anybody have a view on how long it is safe to use a 302 temporary redirect for? i.e., is 8-10 months to long.
302's are for very small time frames such as a couple days. If you are looking for a suggested max time for a 302 I'll throw a month out as an absolute max, and that would probably be too long. I would be interested to hear feedback from other Mozzers on this topic.
Given your circumstance, I would 301 the pages, then 8-10 months later when the merger happens cancel the 301.
As long as the sites which currently link to Site B maintain their links, and those sites maintain their authority, then site B would not lose it's link equity. You are merely passing 90%+ of that link equity to site B for the 10 month downtime period.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Using the same image across the site?
Hi just wondering i'm using the same image across 20 pages which are optimized for SEO purposes. I was wondering is there issues with this from SEO standpoint? Will Google devalue the page because the same image is being used? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seowork2140 -
Domain Redirect and SSL Cert
Hi, When redirecting an entire site to another domain, do you have to maintain the SSL certificate? The SSL expires 3 days before the planned redirect. Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sofla_seo0 -
Using a US CDN (Cloudflare) for a UK Site. Should I use a UK Based CDN as it says my server is based in USA
Hi All, We are a UK Company with Uk customers only and use CloudFlare CND. Our Site is hosted by a UK company with servers here but from looking online and checking where my site is hosted etc etc , some sites are telling me the name of our UK Hosted company and other sites are telling me my site is hosted in San Fran (USA) , where I presume the Cloudflare is based. I know Cloudflare has a couple of servers in the UK it uses but given all my customers are UK based ,I don't want this is affect rankings etc , as I thought it was a ranking benefit to be hosted in the country you are based. Is there any issue with this and should I change or is google clever enough to know so i shouldn't worry. thanks Pet
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
303 redirect
Hi, 303 redirect is a good thing or not ? I have a homepage in 2 languages FR and EN > mywebsite.com/fr/ and mywebsite.com/en/. A 303 redirect is on mywebsite.com to mywebsite.com/fr/. Thanks D.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | android_lyon0 -
Is it ok to use both 301 redirect and rel="canonical' at the same time?
Hi everyone, I'm sorry if this has been asked before. I just wasn't able to find a response in previous questions. To fix the problems in our website regarding duplication I have the possibility to set up 301's and, at the same time, modify our CMS so that it automatically sets a rel="canonical" tag for every page that is generated. Would it be a problem to have both methods set up? Is it a problem to have a on a page that is redirecting to another one? Is it advisable to have a rel="canonical" tag on every single page? Thanks for reading!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SDLOnlineChannel0 -
GeoIP - Redirect all but target country
My client would like to redirect all non UK traffic from their UK site to their main group site. I am intending to use a .htaccess redirect, like this: RewriteCond %{ENV:GEOIP_COUNTRY_CODE} !^GB$
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cottamg
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.group.com$1 [R,L] I have tested the redirect at it works fine. My question is if I put this in place would it have any negative SEO impact on the UK site?0 -
How long should a domain redirect take?
Hi, I know that this is a 'How long is a piece of string?' type question but at what point should the ranking value of site A pass over to site B following a domain 301 redirect? I have shifted a domain over to a new URL, same hosting server, same IP address. I haven't made any URL changes or any content changes other than to change the site logo to match the new domain name. Domain B is basically an exact clone of domain A. I have redirected Domain A to domain B using the following line at the top of the .htaccess file:- Redirect 301 / http://www.newdomain.com/ I have submitted a sitemap for the new domain via google webmaster tools. It looks like the original domain as been completely indexed by google following the redirect as all rankings have been dropped from the results and there are no results for a site:olddomain.com search. Surely the rankings should have switched over at this point? Any help would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdeLewis
Ade.0 -
Is it safe to redirect multiple URLs to a single URL?
Hi, I have an old Wordress website with about 300-400 original pages of content on it. All relating to my company's industry: travel in Africa. It's a legitimate site with travel stories, photos, advice etc. Nothing spammy about. No adverts on it. No affiliates. The site hasn't been updated for a couple of years and we no longer have a need for it. Many of the stories on it are quite out of date. The site has built up a modest Mozrank value over the last 5 years, and has a few hundreds organically achieved inbound links. Recently I set up a swanky new branded website on ExpressionEngine on a new domain. My intention is to: Shut down the old site Focus all attention on building up content on the new website Ask the people linking to the old site to my new site instead (I wonder how many will actually do so...) Where possible, setup a 301 redirect from pages on the old site to their closest match on the new site Setup a 301 redirect from the old site's home page to new site's homepage Sounds good, right? But there is one issue I need some advice on... The old site has about 100 pages that do not have a good match on the new site. These pages are outdated or inferior quality, so it doesn't really make sense to rewrite them and put them on the new site. I call these my "black sheep pages". So... for these "black sheep pages" should I (A) redirect the urls to the new site's homepage (B) redirect the urls the old site's home page (which in turn, redirects to the new site's homepage, or (C) not redirect the urls, and let them die a lonely 404 death? OPTION A: oldsite.com/page1.php -> newsite.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AndreVanKets
oldsite.com/page2.php -> newsite.com
oldsite.com/page3.php -> newsite.com
oldsite.com/page4.php -> newsite.com
oldsite.com/page5.php -> newsite.com
oldsite.com -> newsite.com OPTION B: oldsite.com/page1.php -> oldsite.com
oldsite.com/page2.php -> oldsite.com
oldsite.com/page3.php -> oldsite.com
oldsite.com/page4.php -> oldsite.com
oldsite.com/page5.php -> oldsite.com
oldsite.com -> newsite.com OPTION 😄 oldsite.com/page1.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
oldsite.com/page2.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
oldsite.com/page3.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
oldsite.com/page4.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
oldsite.com/page5.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
oldsite.com -> newsite.com My intuition tells me that Option A would pass the most "link juice" to my new site, but I am concerned that it could also be seen by Google as a spammy redirect technique. What would you do? Help 😐1