• ISEdb, Thursday, February 7, 2008 12:30 PM

While permanent 301 redirects are typically what Webmasters use when trying to shift users to a new Web site, Schott Van Achte notes that sometimes a temporary 302 redirect may be more useful. Unlike 301s which tell the search engines to remove the old location from their index and stick with the new one, a 302 redirect tells the engines to read and use the content on the new page, but to also keep checking the original URL first, as it will ultimately be reestablished.

301s are the most SEO-friendly way to redirect traffic, and should be used whenever you've deleted or permanently moved a page, if you're (heaven forbid!) switching to a new domain name, or want to prevent PageRank split between the www-prefixed and non-prefixed versions of your URL.

Van Achte lists the need to temporarily move a page, send traffic to a special promotional landing page, or shorten a long, obscure URL of a home page that's been created by a content management system (CMS) as some possible reasons for using a 302 redirect instead.

Read the whole story at ISEdb »