WEB DEVELOPMENT · GUIDE
301 vs. 302 Redirects: Which Should You Use?
Choose permanent or temporary redirects, understand request-method changes, and test migrations before making them permanent.
A redirect does two jobs: it sends a visitor to another address and explains what happened to the original resource. A permanent move and a temporary detour may look identical in the browser, but they express different intentions. Choosing between 301 and 302 starts with that intention, not with which number looks better in an SEO checklist.
For a directory-based website, redirects are useful when an article moves, a category name changes or the preferred hostname becomes consistent across the site. They are also easy to get wrong when several systems participate. Apache, PHP, a proxy and an application can each issue a redirect. Before adding another rule, identify which layer should own the change and inspect what the old URL currently returns.
Use 301 for a move intended to last
A 301 response says that the resource has moved permanently. A category renamed from /snowman/ to /snowman-games/ is a straightforward example if the new directory will remain the public location. Visitors with bookmarks should reach the corresponding replacement, and your own navigation should link directly to the new address.
Permanent redirects can be cached, making a mistaken destination inconvenient to reverse during testing. Establish the mapping before committing it. Moving a whole directory also requires checking whether every old child has a real equivalent. Sending unrelated pages to a homepage may technically redirect the browser, but it does not preserve the purpose of those links.
Use 302 for a temporary detour
A 302 response indicates that the resource is temporarily available at another location. It can suit a short-lived landing-page experiment or a temporary substitute while a page is being repaired. The original URL remains the address you expect to keep using once the temporary condition ends.
Temporary does not mean unimportant or safe to forget. Keep a record of why the rule exists and when you expect to remove it. A detour left running for years becomes difficult to distinguish from an intentional migration. Review both the status code and the current content rather than assuming the label still matches the website’s behavior.
Check the request method as well as permanence
Ordinary navigation usually uses GET, but form submissions and API calls need a more careful choice. With 301 or 302, a client may change a POST into a GET when following the redirect. A 307 is temporary and preserves the method; a 308 is the permanent method-preserving counterpart. A 303 is commonly used when a processed form should lead to a separate confirmation page using GET.
Preserving POST is not automatically the right answer. Repeating a submission at another endpoint could create a second operation if the first handler already processed it. Decide whether the redirect represents a moved endpoint or a follow-up page. That distinction matters more than keeping the body merely because it is technically possible.
Write a small Apache rule with a narrow scope
In the document-root .htaccess, the RewriteRule pattern does not begin with the leading URL slash. The example below matches one old directory and its descendants. It assumes Apache has mod_rewrite enabled and permits the relevant overrides. Test these prerequisites with your hosting configuration rather than copying rules into an unrelated server stack.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^old-section(?:/(.*))?$ /new-section/$1 [R=302,L]Begin with a temporary status while verifying this example mapping. The old directory root goes to the new directory root, and child paths keep their suffix. Once you confirm that this is genuinely permanent and all intended destinations exist, change R=302 to R=301. The rule belongs before broad application routing that would otherwise consume the same request.
This simple mapping retains an existing query string when the substitution does not introduce a new one. That may be useful for tracking parameters, but legacy queries can also carry obsolete instructions. Define whether they should survive before applying the rule across a complicated application. Special characters in rewritten paths may require additional escaping considerations beyond this plain-slug example.
Keep the migration map and public links aligned
Imagine that an article first moves into a new category and later gets a new slug. Two independent redirects could create a chain: old article, intermediate article, final article. When possible, map the old address directly to its final replacement. A small spreadsheet or text manifest of old and new paths makes those relationships easier to maintain.
Update navigation, related-content links, canonical metadata and sitemap entries as part of the same move. A canonical tag does not redirect a visitor, and changing the sitemap does not repair old bookmarks. Each has a different job. The redirect supports older addresses while your current content consistently points at the destination you want people to use.
Inspect the response rather than just the final page
A browser that ends on the right page can hide a chain, an unexpected status or a cached rule. Inspect the network panel, or request headers with curl. Test the directory root, a real child page, a query string and a path that should not match. Then check that the final destination serves the intended content and does not redirect back.
curl -I https://www.example.com/old-section/article/
curl -I -L --max-redirs 5 https://www.example.com/old-section/article/Some applications respond differently to HEAD, the method used by curl -I. If the results are surprising, make a GET request while printing headers as well. Use a clean browser session to reduce confusion from previously cached permanent redirects. Also inspect proxy or hosting-panel rules when the response differs from the .htaccess file you are editing.
Choose the status that describes the actual plan
For a lasting article or category relocation, a permanent response is usually the coherent choice. For a defined detour, use a temporary response and document its removal condition. For a form or API endpoint, consider the method and body before selecting the status. No status code fixes a poor destination or guarantees rankings; the content mapping and complete migration still matter.
Continue with redirecting an entire directory and PHP header redirects. Technical references: MDN on 301, 302 and 307, plus the Apache redirect guide.