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.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • 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. Should I run 302 first before implementing 301?

    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.

    Should I run 302 first before implementing 301?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4
    9
    1498
    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.
    • esiow2013
      esiow2013 last edited by

      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?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • trainSEM
        trainSEM @Milian last edited by

        This is a friend's tool that has some more options.
        http://incredibill.me/htaccess-rewrite-wizard

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • esiow2013
          esiow2013 @Milian last edited by

          We will remove a vertical/division from our current site and migrate the URLs (category and product-specific pages) to new URLs under a new domain. Let me know your thoughts Max!

          By the way, thanks for sharing the redirect generator tool.

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

            Thanks esiow2013 & others for discussing on 301 redirect, I also had same issue.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • Milian
              Milian last edited by

              That's also a useful tool Ash, although it won't deal with URLs that that have parameters in such as question marks.

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

                I have found that a 301 takes some time to take effect in the index, so I don't bother with a 302 first, There are many redirect tools on the web and I like this one: http://www.rapidtables.com/web/tools/redirect-generator.htm

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

                  What are you actually doing, redesigning a site and URLs have changed?

                  Although regardless, the process is normally the same. As soon as you have launched your new site, made live your new page or whatever is you are redirecting, set the redirects at the same time. There is no reason to delay them and again I really wouldn't bother with doing the redirects as 302's to start with. Just set the 301's, then check them all after, then double check. Even if some are incorrect after implementing, its no biggie. Simply edit it again so its correct .

                  The best thing to do is prepare all your redirects before I hand. I like to get organised and use a spread sheet with two columns, old URLs in one column, new URLs in the 2nd column. This way you can easily map them out.

                  Also to speed up the process of actually coding the redirects, I use this tool, it saves a huge amount of time: HtAccess 301 Redirect Generator Tool .

                  esiow2013 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                  • esiow2013
                    esiow2013 last edited by

                    Thanks Max! Your answers are a big help. Last question, do I need to 301 redirect the old to new URLs within the day we will launch the new site after removing the old site? or should we prepare 302 redirects and check each URL that are still live(will be removed in site launch) if they land on the appropriate and new URLs and run 301 redirections after?

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

                      Like you mentioned, the reasoning behind doing 302 redirects initially is in case the redirect has been set incorrectly, giving you time to check them before Google re-crawls and updates the index. As 302 redirects are temporary, after setting the redirect the old page will usually stay in Google's index indefinitely.

                      However I do many 301 redirects every week and I have never taken this approach; I simply set the 301 redirect, then check everything is correct straight after. If you have hundreds of redirects to do you can check them more efficiently using the Screaming Frog web crawler. You can import your list of pages that should have been redirected in a txt file, then Screaming frog will crawl them telling you what response code they are sending and where they are redirecting too.

                      Even if you set an incorrect 301 redirect, it can takes weeks to months before Google updates the index, so you shouldn't really need to worry about sending the 'juice' to the incorrect page; although I suppose it depends on how long until you check if you have done those redirects correctly!

                      There could also be adverse issues. Say you were doing a site migration and you 302 redirected every URL on your site to other URLs, I don't know how Google would react to that, but it could be rather bad!

                      As the saying goes 'Measure Twice, Cut Once'!

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                      • 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

                      • cathywix

                        301 Redirects to relative URLs not absolute a problem?

                        Hi we recently did a migration and a lot of content changed locations see: https://d.pr/i/RvqI81 Basically, the 301 goes to the correct location but its a relative URL (as you can see from the screenshot) rather than absolute URL. Do you think this is a high priority issue from an SEO standpoint, should we get the developer to change the redirects to absolute? Cheers.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cathywix
                        0
                      • vtmoz

                        Does removal of internal redirects(301) help in SEO

                        I am planning to completely remove 301 redirects manually by replacing such links with actual live pages/links. So there will be no redirects internally in the website. Will this boost our SEO efforts? Auto redirects will be there for incoming links to non-existing pages. Thanks, Satish

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz
                        0
                      • zeepartner

                        Language Detection redirect: 301 or 302?

                        We have a site offering a voip app in 4 languages. Users are currently 302 redirected from the root page to /language subpages, depending on their browser language. Discussions about the sense of this aside: Is it correct to use a 302 redirect here or should users be 301 redirected to their respective languages? I don't find any guideline on this whatsoever...

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | zeepartner
                        1
                      • 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
                      • CommercePundit

                        How to stop Google crawling after 301 redirect?

                        I have removed all pages from my old website and set 301 redirect to new website. But, I have verified old website with Google webmaster tools' HTML verification file which enable me to track all data and existence of pages in Google search for my old website. I was assumed that, Google will stop crawling and DE-indexed all pages after 301 redirect. Because, I have set 301 redirect before 3 months. Now, I'm able to see Google bot activity on my website with help of Google webmaster tools. You can find out attachment to know more about it. How can it possible & How Google can crawl removed pages? You can see following image to know more about it. First & Second

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit
                        0
                      • SEOMG

                        Can penalties be passed via 301 redirect?

                        I have a well established domain that's been hit with some penalties. It hasn't been nuked off the map, just downgraded, especially on short-tail, one word type queries. I'm planning on redirecting this domain to another well established domain. The domains already have a history of lots of interlinking and are very similar from a subject matter standpoint. I feel that the penalized domain has been hit with an "over-optimization" of link anchor text penalty (I'm hoping it's algorithmic, but it could be manual). My question is if anyone has ever heard of a penalty like this being transferred to another domain through a 301 redirect. My hope is that the penalty just puts a cap on how much juice the redirect can pass, rather than transferring the penalty to the other domain itself. Any thoughts on this?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEOMG
                        1
                      • MyNet

                        How To 301 Redirect .html pages

                        I need to redirect a page/URL that is purely .html to a new location.  I don't know how to do this.  All the redirects I can find are for server side code pages .php/.aspx etc.  From my understanding I can't put a server side redirect in a .html file.  I am hosting on a microsoft server, however the new page I am redirecting to is .php.  I am running some WordPress (.php) files on the server.  I need to make it redirect before the old page loads so visitors don't start reading something that is about to get redirected Can someone please help me?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MyNet
                        0
                      • seointern

                        301 redirect from .html to non .html?

                        Previously our site was using this as our URL structure: www.site.com/page.html. A few months ago we updated our URL structure to this: www.site.com/page & we're not using the .html. I've read over this guide & don't see anywhere that discusses this: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection. I've currently got a programmer looking into, but am always a bit weary with their workarounds, as I'd previously had them cause more problems then fix it. Here is the solution he is looking to do: The way that I am doing the redirect is fine. The problem is of where to put the code. The issue is that the files are .html files that need to be redirected to the same url with out a .html on them. I can see if I can add that to the 404 redirect page if there is one inside of there and see if that does the trick. That way if there is no page that exists without the .html then it will still be a 404 page. However if it is there then it will work as normal. I will see what I can find and get back. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, BJ

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seointern
                        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
                      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.