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
      • 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. International SEO
    4. Multilang site: Auto redirect 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.

    Multilang site: Auto redirect 301 or 302?

    International SEO
    redirect 301 redirect 302 international seo
    3
    5
    4919
    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.
    • fJ66doneOIdDpj
      fJ66doneOIdDpj Subscriber last edited by

      We need to establish if 301 or 302 response code is to be used for our auto redirects based on Accept-Language header.

      https://domain.com
      30x > https://domain.com/en
      30x > https://domain.com/ru
      30x > https://domain.com/de

      The site architecture is set up with proper inline HREFLANG.
      We have read different opinions about this, Ahrefs says 302 is the correct one:
      https://ahrefs.com/blog/301-vs-302-redirects/
      302 redirect:
      "You want to redirect users to the right version of the site for them (based on location/language)."

      You could argue that the root redirect is never permanent as it varies based on user language settings (302)
      On the other hand, the lang specific redirects are permanent per language:

      IF Accept-Language header = en
      https://domain.com > 301 > https://domain.com/en
      IF Accept-Language header = ru
      https://domain.com > 301 > https://domain.com/ru

      So each of these is 'permanent'.

      So which is the correct?

      Tom.Capper 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Scottoffroad
        Scottoffroad last edited by

        Hi Guys i am newer to SEO. my web with the 301 302 issue. anyone able help to fix it? will be high appreciated.

        Internal URL
        Yes
        Full URL
        https://myoffroadled.com/led-rocker-switch
        HTTP status code
        301 Moved permanently
        First found at
        Seed URL
        Content type
        text/html; charset=utf-8
        Depth
        0
        Redirect URL
        https://www.myoffroadled.com/led-rocker-switch/
        Not crawled
        Is redirect loop
        No
        Page rating
        100

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Tom.Capper
          Tom.Capper Subject Expert @fJ66doneOIdDpj last edited by

          @fj66doneoiddpj In some cases users may have a reason for using the site in something other than their browser language.

          For example, perhaps a shared device, or simply wishing to check a different localisation.

          If your hreflang is working correctly, they should never see the "wrong" version anyhow.

          But, there are pros and cons of course.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • fJ66doneOIdDpj
            fJ66doneOIdDpj Subscriber last edited by

            Thank you for the reply, 302 is also what we decided after many hours of reading.
            The main reason for auto redirect is that we feel it's a better user experience as user will arrive the content target to his/her browser language.

            Tom.Capper 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Tom.Capper
              Tom.Capper Subject Expert @fJ66doneOIdDpj last edited by

              @fj66doneoiddpj

              I would use a 302 here, just as an added insurance in case you ever accidentally serve Google the redirect.

              However, I'm not a huge fan of auto redirects in general - they tend to cause issues for crawlers and users alike. Can you explain a bit more when/why the user gets redirected? Perhaps instead you could serve a country selection insterstitial if a user seems to be on the "wrong" variant?

              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

              • Ravi_Rana

                How to rank a website in different countries

                seo tactic seo international seo seo rankings seo expert

                I have a website which I want to rank in UK, NZ and AU and I want to keep my domain as .com in all the countries. I have specified the lang=en now what needs to be done to rank one website in 3 different English countries without changing the domain extension i.e. .com.au or .com.nz

                SEO Tactics | | Ravi_Rana
                0
              • aplusnetsolutions

                How can I make a list of all URLs indexed by Google?

                redirect indexed urls google url index google broken links

                I have a large site with over 6000 pages indexed but only 600 actual pages and need to clean up with 301 redirects. Haven't had this need since Google stopped displaying the url's in the results.

                SEO Tactics | | aplusnetsolutions
                0
              • DocdataCommerce

                How to best set up international XML site map?

                Hi everyone, I've been searching about a problem, but haven't been able to find an answer. We would like to generate a XML site map for an international web shop. This shop has one domain for Dutch visitors (.nl) and another domain for visitors of other countries (Germany, France, Belgium etc.) (.com). The website on the 2 domains looks the same, has the same template and same pages, but as it is targeted to other countries, the pages are in different languages and the urls are also in different languages (see example below for a category bags). Example Netherlands:
                Dutch domain: www.client.nl 
                Example Dutch bags category page: www.client.nl/tassen Example France:
                International domain: www.client.com 
                Example French bags category page: www.client.com/sacs When a visitor is on the Dutch domain (.nl) which shows the Dutch content, he can switch country to for example France in the country switch and then gets redirected to the other, international .com domain. Also the other way round. Now we want to generate a XML sitemap for these 2 domains. As it is the same site, but on 2 domains, development wants to make 1 sitemap, where we take the Dutch version with Dutch domain as basis and in the alternates we specify the other language versions on the other domain (see example below). <loc>http://www.client.nl/tassen</loc>
                <xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
                hreflang="fr"
                href="http://www.client.com/sacs"
                /></xhtml:link<br> Is this the best way to do this? Or would we need to make 2 site maps, as it are 2 domains?

                International SEO | | DocdataCommerce
                0
              • SimonByrneIFS

                Can you target the same site with multiple country HREFlang entries?

                Hi, I have a question regarding the country targeting aspect of HREFLANG. Can the same site be targeted with multiple country HREFlang entries? Example: A global company has an English South African site (geotargeted in webmaster tools to South Africa), with a hreflang entry targeted to "en-za", to signify English language and South Africa as the country. Could you add entries to the same site to target other English speaking South African countries? Entries would look something like this: (cd = Congo, a completely random example) etc... Since you can only geo-target a site to one country in WMT would this be a viable option? Thanks in advance for any help! Vince

                International SEO | | SimonByrneIFS
                0
              • peteboyd

                What is the proper way to setup hreflang tags on my English and Spanish site?

                I have a full English website at http://www.example.com and I have a Spanish version of the website at http://spanish.example.com but only about half of the English pages were translated and exist on the Spanish site. Should I just add a sitemap to both sites with hreflang tags that point to the correct version of the page? Is this a proper way to set this up? I was going to repeat this same process for all of the applicable URLs that exist on both versions of the website (English and Spanish). Is it okay to have hreflang="es" or do I need to have a country code attached as well? There are many Spanish speaking countries and I don't know if I need to list them all out. For example hreflang="es-bo" (Bolivia), hreflang="es-cl" (Chile), hreflang="es-co" (Columbia), etc... Sitemap example for English website URL:
                <url><loc>http://www.example.com/</loc></url> Sitemap example for Spanish website URL:
                <url><loc>http://spanish.example.com/</loc></url> Thanks in advance for your feedback and help!

                International SEO | | peteboyd
                0
              • Awaraman

                Redirect the main site to keyword-rich subfolder / specific page for SEO

                Hi, I have two questions. Question 1: is it worthwhile to redirect the main site to keyword-rich subfolder / specific page for SEO? For example, my company's webpage is www.example.com. Would it make sense to redirect (301) the main site to address www.example.com/service-one-in-certain-city ? I am asking this as I have learned that it is important for SEO to have keywords in the URL, and I was thinking that we could do this and include the most important keywords to the subfolder / specific URL. What are the pros and cons of this? Should I create folders or pages just the sake of keywords? Question 2: Most companies have their main URL shown as www.example.com when you access their domain. However, some multi-language sites show e.g. www.example.com/en or www.example.com/en/main when you type the domain to your web browser to access the site. I understand that this is a common practice to use subdomains or folders to separate different language versions. My question is regarding subfolders. Is it better to have only the subfolder shown (www.example.com/en) or should I also include the specific page's URL after the subfolder with keywords (www.example.com/en/main or www.example.com/en/service-one-in-certain-city)? I don't really understand why some companies show only the subfolder of a specific language page and some the page's URL after the subfolder. Thanks in advance, Sam

                International SEO | | Awaraman
                1
              • Dennis-52961

                How can I see what my web site looks like from a different country?

                I've tried a few proxy tools to try to see how my site looks from other global locations, but haven't found one that works very well yet -- or a list of reliable proxies around the world. I need to do this to test various geo-targetted ads and other optimizations. Can anyone make a recommendation? Thanks!

                International SEO | | Dennis-52961
                0
              • BlinkWeb

                Targeting Different Countries... One Site or Separate?

                I have a client who has 3 ecommerce sites. They are somewhat differentiated but for the most part sell the same stuff. Luckily 2 of them are quite authoritative, old and rank reasonably well. Most of the visitors and sales come from the US. He wants to start targeting Europe, Mexico and Canada. What are your suggestions for doing this? Are we better targeting on the main domains? Not really sure how to do that? Should we use a subdomain and a new store front for each geo? Should we use a .co.uk .co.mx and .co.ca each with a unique storefront? It looks like we are moving to a Magento platform so setting up multiple storefronts on a single database is not a big issue. Anyone have any experience with this?

                International SEO | | BlinkWeb
                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.