WP Marketing

301 and 302 http reply codes indicating redirections are very much different in terms of Google SEO. And did you know WordPress is always using 302 by default?

Let’s see what the difference is first.

301 :  Moved Permanently. 301 tells you that the current website requested by current URI is moved to a new brand new URI, so you should drop the originally used URI. If you are moving a website to a different domain, this is the way should be done.

302 : Moved Temporarily. 302 tells you that the current redirection is temporary  and you should use the original request URI next time you visit again. If you are temporarily redirecting to a page (site update or special product promotion…), this is it.

Now let’s see How Google sees these redirection codes. If 301 is used, Google will move original request URI’s PageRank to the new destination URI. And eventually remove the request URI. If 302 is used PageRank will be intact to the original website and the original website will also benefit from the destination website’s content.

Many shared webhosting accounts set up both www (ex. http://www.example.com )and top level domain (http://example.com) to point to the same webpage by default. If you use them both website URLs thinking they are the same address, you are mistaken. In fact, you will eventually split the PageRank and pages might be considered as duplicated content.
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