301 redirect means that a resource the user has been looking for was fully or partially transferred to a new location. Once you receive a 301 status code from a website you will be redirected to a new URL, which contains the piece of content you wanted to find.
The role of 301 redirect is very important for SEO as well. When you move your content to a new URL, the 301 status code notifies search engines about this, so that your new page will appear instead of an old one in search results. Thus, your organic traffic won’t be decreased because of the migration.
As mentioned above, 301 redirect is permanent, therefore it’s impractical for temporary changes or instances of A/B testing. Here is when you should apply 301 redirect:
Simply put, 301 code is used when the content of the page has migrated to a new location and will not return to the original URL.
Along with 301, there is also a 302 redirect, which is used as a temporary redirect for users and search engines. As well as with 301, 302 redirects to the desired page, but the difference between those two statuses is that you apply 302 for temporary use only. For example, if you run A/B testing of a webpage for a new design or want to update an existing web page, but still want users to have access to the content you provide, 302 can be applied in these cases. Usage of 302 for permanent changes can negatively influence your website’s search engine visibility because search engines will confuse your old and new URLs.
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