SEO

301 vs. 302 Redirects

When you move content from one location to another on a web site, there are a number of methods to redirect requests for the old URL to the new page location. For SEO purposes, a technique known as a 301 redirect is the correct way to set up redirects. A 301 redirect is the web server’s way of telling search engines that the page has moved permanently. A 302 redirect, by contrast, states that the page has moved temporarily. To avoid losing page rank for your URLs, always use a 301 redirect, not a 302 redirect.

OK, now let’s say you’ve set up a redirect, and from a user experience perspective, you can see in the browser that requests to a moved page redirect properly to the new URL. But is the 301 code rendering correctly to the search engines to preserve your URLs page rank? How do you verify this?

Enter LiveHTTPHeader. More on installing this incredible tool later.