undefined
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
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • 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
    • 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.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • 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. Does a 302 redirect pass penalties?

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.

Does a 302 redirect pass penalties?

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
5
10
3.4k
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.
  • MattBarker
    MattBarker last edited by Aug 8, 2013, 1:00 AM

    I'm having problems finding a definitive answer to this question, there is a lot of rumour and gossip out there but nothing I can rely on.

    I'm working with a site that received an unnatural links notice followed by a massive drop in search traffic. Looking at the link profile it's pretty much jacked beyond repair and I have recommended that we move over to a fresh domain.

    However, it's an established brand with many more sources of traffic than organic search. There's no way we can burn all their repeat visits, loyal customers, brand recognition that they've built up over the years so I want to redirect from the old domain to the new.  This is not to try and make any SEO gain from the previous site, frankly we don't give a crap about that. We just want to maintain the brand.

    A 302 is a temporary redirect, this will be a permanent move BUT a 301 will pass on the penalty.  So can we safely use a 302 redirect in this situation or is there a better alternative (meta refresh?)

    Thanks for your help!

    MB.

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • MattBarker
      MattBarker @SEOdub last edited by Oct 24, 2013, 9:50 AM Oct 24, 2013, 9:49 AM

      Cheers Chris. Something like that would be a good fallback plan, but in our case the referral and direct traffic is way more important than organic search.

      In the absence of any better solution and because we can't ditch the brand and all the non-SEO traffic we've decided to go down the cleanup route.  Even if it doesn't work it's better than sacrificing the referral and direct traffic the brand gets.  Sucks that there seems to be no better solution to this problem, it seems like a common issue.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • SEOdub
        SEOdub last edited by Oct 23, 2013, 9:46 PM Oct 23, 2013, 9:44 PM

        I assume you have already considered this but a more sure way to keep the continuity (most) of traffic without passing the penalty would be to set individual landing pages on the old domain (for each important URL) with a notice about the new site and a large no follow link to forward to tcorrelating page on the new domain. You would need to create a lot of pages but it is a solution, albeit one with a poor user experience so it's probably a last resort (better than a 404).

        I have a client caught in an algorithmic penalty and am searching these same sources for answers.  It seems that sometimes a 301 can avert the penalty but ussually does not.  Were gonna try it, if it doesn't work we might be exactly where your client is now looking at a new clean domain and 302's (maybe).

        Good Luck!

        MattBarker 1 Reply Last reply Oct 24, 2013, 9:49 AM Reply Quote 0
        • topic:timeago_earlier,2 months
        • MattBarker
          MattBarker last edited by Aug 22, 2013, 12:13 AM Aug 22, 2013, 12:13 AM

          I would still love to know if anyone has any more concrete information on this question.  At the moment it seems like people like my client find themselves in an intractable problem:

          • Recovering is highly unlikely, so it's often easier to save the brand and move to a new domain

          • But doing so means you have to relinquish all your previous brand recognition and loyalty (NOT your old site's SEO) because using a 301 OR a 302 redirect will pass along the penalty

          So is there no way of redirecting a domain that will not pass any SEO value and/or the penalty?  If you don't care about the old site's SEO status or links and you just want to start anew, is it also impossible to retain the branded traffic & repeat visitors from the old site?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • KeriMorgret
            KeriMorgret @BlueprintMarketing last edited by Aug 18, 2013, 7:01 PM Aug 18, 2013, 7:01 PM

            Can you share some of the information that led you to that conclusion?

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • topic:timeago_earlier,10 days
            • BlueprintMarketing
              BlueprintMarketing @MattBarker last edited by Aug 9, 2013, 5:34 AM Aug 9, 2013, 5:34 AM

              Hi Matthew,

              I had assumed that you were trying to wipe the slate clean. However because you were talking about redirecting links from any source at all. I assume that you would be trying to 302 redirect a link for me what was once bad source to a now clean slate or new source. My history of helping people with this and knowledge personally on the subject tells me do not do it I would strongly advise against doing it. However there is an SCO company you may feel more comfortable in speaking with that will give you the same definite answer.

              I would try the guys atDistilled, or Virantehttp://www.virante.org/Virante is a Company that is endorsed by Moz & The reason I'm speaking about them is they make a tool called http://www.removeem.com/They deal quite a bit with penalties and link removal. So not that you are looking to remove links however they would give you a very definite yes or no and from what I've experienced myself it is not really wiping the slate clean and less you truly are wiping the slate clean and that means having webmasters that have valid links not the ones that got you in trouble obviously asked for them to change the link so that it is still link to you if they'll actually do it. There's no way you're going to retain  your ranking from this you're going to have to start from scratch and do some RCS.Sorry if my answer was not clear enough. Respectfully, Thomas

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • MattBarker
                MattBarker @AndreVanKets last edited by Aug 9, 2013, 4:11 AM Aug 9, 2013, 4:11 AM

                Thanks Greg,

                I had seen that previous discussion, it's pretty much the most useful content I could find on the subject. Except it's well over 12 months old, and it pretty clearly establishes that 301 redirects do pass penalties immediately.

                Given we're moving the site to escape a penalty it would be crazy to use a 301 redirect when we know that is going to pass on the penalty.

                My question is whether a 302 redirect will pass a penalty. In theory it shouldn't because it doesn't pass PageRank or other SEO metrics, so would it pass a penalty?

                It's nuts that there's no more definitive information on something that should be so easy to test and answer.  Is there no advice from Moz or any of the other authorities on this?

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • AndreVanKets
                  AndreVanKets last edited by Aug 8, 2013, 6:13 AM Aug 8, 2013, 6:13 AM

                  Hi Mathew,

                  There was an interesting discussion on this subject on another question thread here

                  There was no definite yes or no to your question, some people experienced the penalty being passed over and others didn't. In theory, if 301's passed penalty, webmasters could 301 all their "dead" sites to competitors and this would be a mission for Google to control should the 301 pass over the penalty.

                  Based on Rands comments in that thread, he believes 301's dont pass on any penalties and it may be due to other factors that contribute to the low rankings on the new sites since implementing the 301.

                  My suggestion would be to go ahead and do the permanent redirect. As you say, you cant afford loosing return customers. Let us know how it goes.

                  Greg

                  MattBarker 1 Reply Last reply Aug 9, 2013, 4:11 AM Reply Quote 0
                  • MattBarker
                    MattBarker @BlueprintMarketing last edited by Aug 8, 2013, 4:27 AM Aug 8, 2013, 4:27 AM

                    Thanks for taking the time to share your opinion Thomas, but respectfully it looks like you misinterpreted my question. I'm very clear that we're not trying to do this to benefit from any old spam links - we're doing this to wipe the slate clean on all that.  But this is a brand we're talking about - people reach the site from all sorts of sources, referrals & reviews, WoM, repeat/loyal visitors, etc.

                    We don't give a damn about the negligible SEO value of the old site but we care very much about not losing our non-organic search visitors as they're all that's sustaining the business right now.

                    So if it's true that both 301 and 302 redirects pass on a penalty that means that Google is screwing with us even when we're trying to wipe the slate clean.  That's just insane even by their standards - now they're trying to penalise people beyond the realm of organic search!

                    But does anyone have any incontrovertible proof that this is the case?  Have Moz or any other authorities done any experiments on this?

                    BlueprintMarketing 1 Reply Last reply Aug 9, 2013, 5:34 AM Reply Quote 0
                    • BlueprintMarketing
                      BlueprintMarketing last edited by Aug 8, 2013, 3:04 AM Aug 8, 2013, 3:04 AM

                      hi,

                      I can tell you with absolute certainty if you have set up 302's out of what was your old website and Google checks that which they will because you said there Penalizing you.

                      "I'm working with a site that received an unnatural links notice followed by a massive drop in search traffic. Looking at the link profile it's pretty much jacked beyond repair and I have recommended that we move over to a fresh domain."

                      I would unfortunately have to recommend strongly that you if moving to note new domain literally begin again. If of course you have relevant links from high quality sources yes those can be 301 redirected.

                      If you think that Google will let you simply 302 bad links to your new site you are going to be in for a very tough time with Google.

                      It's extremely important to follow the rules and not to try to manipulate them in any way shape or form if they feel that you are trying to benefit from what they think is spam to put it nicely they will come down on you much harder. I know it's not the answer you want to hear. However,I know for a fact you should not do that and if you do you will simply be penalized again.

                      Recommend using open web explore along with majestic SEO to find the relevant back links and see if there's a way to salvage some of them. Through webmasters changing the quality links. Most likely white hat webmasters are likely to respond and be more friendly than black hat webmasters. Though I know I'm not telling you anything new everyone's unique.

                      I wish you the best on this sincerely,

                      Thomas

                      MattBarker KeriMorgret 2 Replies Last reply Aug 18, 2013, 7:01 PM Reply Quote 0
                      • 1 / 1
                      1 out of 10
                      • First post
                        1/10
                        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

                      • alex_goldman

                        All URLs in the site is 302 redirected to itself

                        Hi everyone, I have a problem with a website wherein all URLs (homepage, inner pages) are 302 redirected. This is based on Screaming Frog crawl. But the weird thing is that they are 302 redirected to themselves which doesn't make any sense. Example:
                        https://www.example.com.au/ is 302 redirected to https://www.example.com.au/ https://www.example.com.au/shop is 302 redirected to https://www.example.com.au/shop https://www.example.com.au/shop/dresses is 302 redirected to https://www.example.com.au/shop/dresses Have you encountered this issue? What did you do to fix it? Would be very glad to hear your responses. Cheers!

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jul 10, 2017, 4:03 PM | alex_goldman
                        0
                      • viatrading1

                        Getting SEO Juice back after Redirect

                        Hi, On my website, many product pages were redirected over time to its product category, due to the product being unavailable. I understand with a 301 redirect, the final URL would have lost about 15% of the link juice. However - if after some time (e.g. 2 months, or 1 year) I remove the redirection - is the original page going to have any SEO juice, or did it already lose all of it? Thanks,

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Sep 30, 2016, 5:01 PM | viatrading1
                        0
                      • DA2013

                        How do you 301 redirect URLs with a hashbang (#!) format? We just lost a ton of pagerank because we thought javascript redirect was the only way! But other sites have been able to do this – examples and details inside

                        Hi Moz, Here's more info on our problem, and thanks for reading! We’re trying to Create 301 redirects for 44 pages on site.com. We’re having trouble 301 redirecting these pages, possibly because they are AJAX and have hashbangs in the URLs. These are locations pages. The old locations URLs are in the following format: www.site.com/locations/#!new-york and the new URLs that we want to redirect to are in this format: www.site.com/locations/new-york We have not been able to create these redirects using Yoast WordPress SEO plugin v.1.5.3.2. The CMS is WordPress version 3.9.1 The reason we want to 301 redirect these pages is because we have created new pages to replace them, and we want to pass pagerank from the old pages to the new. A 301 redirect is the ideal way to pass pagerank. Examples of pages that are able to 301 redirect hashbang URLs include http://www.sherrilltree.com/Saddles#!Saddles and https://twitter.com/#!RobOusbey.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Mar 26, 2015, 1:29 PM | DA2013
                        0
                      • CommT

                        Should I redirect my xml sitemap?

                        Hi Mozzers, We have recently rebranded with a new company name, and of course this necessitated us to relaunch our entire website onto a new domain. I watched the Moz video on how they changed domain, copying what they did pretty much to the letter. (Thank you, Moz for sharing this with the community!) It has gone incredibly smoothly. I told all my bosses that we may see a 40% reduction in traffic / conversions in the short term. In the event (and its still very early days) we have in fact seen a 15% increase in traffic and our new website is converting better than before so an all-round success! I was just wondering if you thought I should redirect my XML sitemap as well? So far I haven't, but despite us doing the change of address thing in webmaster tools, I can see Google processed the old sitemap xml after we did the change of address etc. What do you think? I know we've been very lucky with the outcome of this rebrand but I don't want to rest on my laurels or get tripped up later down the line. Thanks everyone! Amelia

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Apr 11, 2014, 1:01 PM | CommT
                        0
                      • romanbond

                        Redirecting index.html to the root

                        Hi, I was wondering if there is a safe way to consolidate link juice on a single version of a home page. I find incoming links to my site that link to both mysite.com/ and mysite.com/index.html. I've decided to go with mysite.com/ as my main and only URL for the site and now I'd like to transfer all link juice from mysite.com/index.html to mysite.com/
                        When i tried 301 redirect from index.html to the root it created an indefinite loop, of course. I know I can use a RewriteRule.., but will it transfer the juice?? Please help!

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Sep 27, 2021, 9:27 PM | romanbond
                        7
                      • Travis-W

                        Multiple 301 Redirects for the Same Page

                        Hi Mozzers, What happens if I have a trail of 301 redirects for the same page? For example,
                        SiteA.com/10 --> SiteA.com/11 --> SiteA.com/13 --> SiteA.com/14 I know I lose a little bit of link juice by 301 redirecting.
                        The question is, would the link juice look like this for the example above? 100% --> 90% --> 81% -->72.9%
                        Or just 100% -----------------------------------------> 90% Does this link juice refer to juice from inbound links or links between internal pages on my site? Thanks!

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Dec 16, 2012, 6:14 PM | Travis-W
                        0
                      • RyanKent

                        Bing Penalty

                        I am working with a client who apparently has been penalized by Bing. The site has been around for many years and they are an industry leader in their field. The site was previously indexed and received a substantial amount of traffic from Bing. Last week the site disappeared from Bing's index. A site: and url: search both show no results. Does anyone have a significant amount of knowledge or experience related to Bing penalties? Here is what I have done so far: http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/webmaster/archive/2009/03/19/getting-out-of-the-penalty-box.aspx This 2009 article states Bing's Summary Tool offers a "Site Status" section with a "Blocked" indicator which informs webmasters if a site is penalized. I have seen it before a long time ago, but apparently the field no longer exists. Is there a definitive means of determining if Bing has manually penalized a site besides a response from their Content Inclusion Request? Danny Sullivan wrote a great article about how Bing removed some sites for thin content last month. It seems two of the sites which were a focus of the article have been re-included in Bing's index. Bing claims an algorithm change where Danny seems skeptical. Either way this could be the same issue. http://searchengineland.com/bing-bans-holiday-deals-sites-102856 there are two recent complaints on Bing's forums about a similar issue where various webmasters shared their sites have been removed. There are no responses to these posts from Bing: http://www.bing.com/community/webmaster/f/12252/p/670360/9665163.aspx#9665163 and http://www.bing.com/community/webmaster/f/12252/t/670550.aspx?PageIndex=1 (the comments are relevant but not the initial post). Any ideas or suggestions would be helpful.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jan 16, 2012, 6:39 PM | RyanKent
                        0
                      • FrontlineMobility

                        How do I go about changing a 302 redirect to a 301.

                        Hello Friends! Thanks for viewing my question. Ok,My question today is How do I go about redirecting a 302 link to a 301 link. I understand the benefits of doing this as far as link juice and how the Search Engines views the two Re-Directs. I am wanting to know where I would start to do this. Thank you in advance for any help or suggestions!

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Aug 25, 2011, 2:01 PM | FrontlineMobility
                        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.