Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. For URLs that require login, should our redirect be 301 or 302?

    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.

    For URLs that require login, should our redirect be 301 or 302?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    2
    4
    3174
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • alecfwilson
      alecfwilson last edited by

      We have a login required section of our website that is being crawled and reporting as potential issues in Webmaster Tools. I'm not sure what the best solution to this is - is it to make URLs requiring a login noindex/nocrawl? Right now, we have them 302 redirecting to the login page, since it's a temporary redirect, it seems like it isn't the right solution. Is a 301 better?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • kayintveen_MD
        kayintveen_MD last edited by

        Uhmn. Yes and no.

        302 suggests it will be back. but actually it will be never back. 
        So a 302 would keep the link juice where it is which is fine. because you do not want to have all that juice to the invaluable login page right.

        but noindex following is the way to go.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • alecfwilson
          alecfwilson last edited by

          Thanks - so the 302 redirect suggests the page has moved temporarily, which it has not. It simply cannot be accessed until a login. Is that considered "moved temporarily?" Since it will be accessible with a login, is that considered a temporary move? I will absolutely make pages that require login noindex. Should I make them nocrawl as well?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • kayintveen_MD
            kayintveen_MD last edited by

            a 302 would suggest the page will be back anytime soon since its a "temporary redirect"
            While a 301 suggest the page is moved. So personally i would use a 302 so that the page your landing on keeps the juice but the user will be redirected to a login screen for example.

            I would suggest to noindex those pages if they are really hidden for search engines. (noindex,follow)

            Interesting reads:

            • Save your website with redirect on Moz.com
              and - SEO Advice discussing 302 redirect on mattcutts.com
            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • 1 / 1
            • First post
              Last post

            Got a burning SEO question?

            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


            Start my free trial


            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.

            • See all categories

            Related Questions

            • Andrew_In_Search_of_Answers

              302 > 302 > 301 Redirect Chain Issue & Advice

              Hi everyone, I recently relaunched our website and everything went well. However, while checking site health, I found a new redirect chain issue (302 > 302 > 301 > 200) when the user requests the HTTP and non-www version of our URL. Here's what's happening: • 302 #1 -- http://domain.com/example/ 302 redirects to http://domain.com/PnVKV/example/ (the 5 characters in the appended "subfolder" are dynamic and change each time)
              • 302 #2 -- http://domain.com/PnVKV/example/ 302 redirects BACK to http://domain.com/example/
              • 301 #1 -- http://domain.com/example/ 301 redirects to https://www.domain.com/example/ (as it should have done originally)
              • 200 -- https://www.domain.com/example/ resolves properly We're hosted on AWS, and one of my cloud architects investigated and reported GoDaddy was causing the two 302s. That's backed up online by posts like https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46307518/random-5-alpha-character-path-appended-to-requests and https://www.godaddy.com/community/Managing-Domains/My-domain-name-not-resolving-correctly-6-random-characters-are/td-p/60782. I reached out to GoDaddy today, expecting them to say it wasn't a problem on their end, but they actually confirmed this was a known bug (as of September 2017) but there is no timeline for a fix. I asked the first rep I spoke with on the phone to send a summary, and here's what he provided in his own words: From the information gathered on my end and I was able to get from our advanced tech support team, the redirect issue is in a bug report and many examples have been logged with the help of customers, but no log will be made in this case due to the destination URL being met. Most issues being logged are site not resolving properly or resolving errors. I realize the redirect can cause SEO issues with the additional redirects occurring. Also no ETA has been logged for the issue being reported. I do feel for you since I now understand more the SEO issues it can cause. I myself will keep an eye out for the bug report and see if any progress is being made any info outside of this I will email you directly. Thanks. Issue being Experienced: Domains that are set to Go Daddy forwarding IPs may sometimes resolve to a url that has extra characters appended to the end of them. Example: domain1.com forwards to http://www.domain2.com/TLYEZ. However it should just forward to http://www.domain2.com. I think this answers what some Moz users may have been experiencing sporadically, especially this previous thread: https://moz.com/community/q/forwarded-vanity-domains-suddenly-resolving-to-404-with-appended-url-s-ending-in-random-5-characters. My question: Given everything stated above and what we know about the impact of redirect chains on SEO, how severe should I rate this? I told my Director that I would recommend we move away from GoDaddy (something I don't want to do, but feel we _**have **_to do), but she viewed it as just another technical SEO issue and one that didn't necessarily need to be prioritized over others related to the relaunch. How would you respond in my shoes? On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the biggest), how big of a technical SEO is this? Would you make it a priority? At the very least, I thought the Moz community would benefit from the GoDaddy confirmation of this issue and knowing about the lack of an ETA on a fix. Thanks!

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Andrew_In_Search_of_Answers
              0
            • RosemaryB

              Should we 301 redirect old events pages on a website?

              We have a client that has an events category section that is filled to the brim with past events webpages.  Another issue is that these old events webpages all contain duplicate meta description tags, so we are concerned that Google might be penalizing our client's website for this issue.   Our client does not want to create specialized meta description tags for these old events pages. Would it be a good idea to 301 redirect these old events landing pages to the main events category page to pass off link equity & remove the duplicate meta description tag issue?   This seems drastic (we even noticed that searchmarketingexpo.com is keeping their old events pages).  However it seems like these old events webpages offer little value to our website visitors. Any feedback would be much appreciated.

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RosemaryB
              0
            • esiow2013

              Should I run 302 first before implementing 301?

              I just want to ask if it is necessary to run 302 redirections first before redirecting old to new URLs permanently. I heard that we should run temporary redirects first so we can check after and to avoid passing the link juice but I want to hear thoughts from experts. Do i need to test 302s for old pages that are still live or should we redirect old URLs once these pages already removed from the site?

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | esiow2013
              0
            • TheEspresseo

              Getting Pages Requiring Login Indexed

              Somehow certain newspapers' webpages show up in the index but require login. My client has a whole section of the site that requires a login (registration is free), and we'd love to get that content indexed. The developer offered to remove the login requirement for specific user agents (eg Googlebot, et al.). I am afraid this might get us penalized. Any insight?

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheEspresseo
              0
            • robotseo

              How to set up 301 redirect for URL with question mark

              I have encountered some issue with 301 redirect and htaccess file. I need to redirect the following url: http://www.domain.com/?specifications=colours/page/3 to: http://www.domain.com/colours The 301 redirect command I wrote in htaccess file is as follow: Redirect 301 /?specifications=colours/page/3 http://www.domain.com/colours And it doesn't work at the moment. What is the correct way to set up 301 redirect here? Your help will be sincerely appreciated!

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | robotseo
              0
            • SEOTGT

              301 or 302 Redirects to Mobile Site

              When it's detected that a mobile device is accessing the site it has the ability to redirect from www.example.com to m.example.com. Does it make more sense to employ a 301 or 302 redirect here? Google says a 301 but does not explain why (although usually I stick to "when in doubt, 301") . It seems like a 302 would prevent passing link juice to the mobile site and having mobile-optimized results also showing up in Google's index. What is the preference here?

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEOTGT
              0
            • Hyrule

              Splitting one Website into 2 Different New Websites with 301 redirects, help?

              Here's the deal. My website stbands.com does fairly well. The only issue it is facing a long term branding crisis. It sells custom products and sporting goods. We decided that we want to make a sporting goods website for the retail stuff and then a custom site only focusing on the custom stuff. One website transformed and broken into 2 new ones, with two new brand names. The way we are thinking about doing this is doing a lot of 301 redirects, but what do we do with the homepage (stbands.com) and what is the best practice to make sure we don't lose traffic to the categories, etc.? Which new website do we 301 the homepage to? It's rough because for some keywords we rank 3 or 4 times on the first page. Scary times, but something must be done for the long term. Any advise is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance. We are set for a busy next few months 🙂

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Hyrule
              0
            • tylerfraser

              301 Redirect With A Message And Delay

              Hello, I'd like to sell a site I own. I'd like the site to be redirected to the buyers site with a 301 redirect. But I'd like the viewer to be informed that the site was purchased by this company and they will be redirect in 5 seconds.I'd like for the redirect to be a complete 301 and pass as much linklove as possible. Are you familiar with how to do this? Thanks, Tyler

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tylerfraser
              0

            Get started with Moz Pro!

            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

            Start my free trial
            Products
            • Moz Pro
            • Moz Local
            • Moz API
            • Moz Data
            • STAT
            • Product Updates
            Moz Solutions
            • SMB Solutions
            • Agency Solutions
            • Enterprise Solutions
            • Digital Marketers
            Free SEO Tools
            • Domain Authority Checker
            • Link Explorer
            • Keyword Explorer
            • Competitive Research
            • Brand Authority Checker
            • Local Citation Checker
            • MozBar Extension
            • MozCast
            Resources
            • Blog
            • SEO Learning Center
            • Help Hub
            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
            • How-to Guides
            • Moz Academy
            • API Docs
            About Moz
            • About
            • Team
            • Careers
            • Contact
            Why Moz
            • Case Studies
            • Testimonials
            Get Involved
            • Become an Affiliate
            • MozCon
            • Webinars
            • Practical Marketer Series
            • MozPod
            Connect with us

            Contact the Help team

            Join our newsletter
            Moz logo
            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
            • Accessibility
            • Terms of Use
            • Privacy

            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.