Story-Based Question
Imagine you run an online store that’s gearing up for a major product launch. For a limited time, you want to temporarily redirect visitors from a product page that’s out of stock to a similar, in-stock product. You don’t want to lose the rankings or traffic the original product page had, but you also don’t want to signal to search engines that the page has permanently moved. How do you handle this scenario?
Exact Answer
A 302 redirect is a temporary redirect used when you want to send visitors to a different page without permanently changing the URL. It tells search engines that the redirect is temporary, and the original page should retain its rankings and SEO value.
Explanation
The main difference between a 301 redirect and a 302 redirect lies in how search engines interpret the move. A 301 redirect signals that a page has permanently moved, and the SEO value should be transferred to the new page. On the other hand, a 302 redirect tells search engines that the redirection is only temporary, so they should keep the original URL in their index and not transfer the SEO value to the new page.
Here’s when you’d use a 302 redirect:
- Temporary Changes: Use it when you expect the redirect to be short-term, like during a product promotion, seasonal sale, or if a page is temporarily unavailable (like for maintenance or updates).
- Preserving Rankings: If you’re temporarily redirecting users to a similar page (like a similar product) but want to maintain the rankings and SEO value of the original URL, the 302 redirect is the way to go.
- Test Pages: If you’re A/B testing new versions of a page and don’t want to lose the existing SEO signals, a 302 redirect ensures search engines don’t treat the test page as the permanent one.
While the 301 redirect passes on most of the link equity, the 302 redirect does not, making it the best choice when you don’t want the search engines to treat the change as permanent.
Example
Let’s say you have an online store, and one of your popular products, a wireless speaker, is out of stock. Instead of leaving the product page empty, you decide to redirect visitors to a similar product, like a wireless headphone, while you restock the speaker.
Here’s how you’d handle it:
- You would use a 302 redirect to temporarily send users from the out-of-stock wireless speaker page to the headphone product page.
- This tells search engines that the redirect is temporary and they should not transfer the ranking and SEO value from the speaker page to the headphone page.
- Once the speaker is back in stock, you can remove the 302 redirect and the original speaker page can continue to maintain its SEO value and traffic.