302 or 307 http headers?

[klemme]

Hi all,

I have a question regarding when I should use a 302 Found or a 307 Temporary Redirect.

As far as I can read, they both send out the message: Moved temporarily, or not?

Or have I come across old articles..'Cause I thought a 302 was a Moved temporarily, and not called "Found".

Can someone explain the difference between 302 and 307? :-)

Regards, Klemme

From what I gather, you should use a 301 redirect most of the time if a page has moved permanently (all redirect links (new permanent location) get the rank in search engines).

A 302/307 redirect could be used for temporary redirects (e.g. if you've moved pages due to maintenance purposes). These types of redirects DO NOT take any link ranking with them - so SEO shouldn't be affected.

Now for the difference in 302/307. To my mind they're pretty much the same, BUT 307 will only work on HTTP1.1. 302 will work with both HTTP1.0 (Moved Temprorarily) and HTTP1.1 (Found). So on balance, I'd use 302.

I'm no expert on this though, and I'm sure other contributors could give you a better description/ better insight.

[klemme]

Thanks,

Yep its the 302 vs. 307 I was curious about - Exactly regarding SEO it would be interesting to know the difference if any.

I am using 301 as an option in a CMS, but I wanted to figure out wether it would be usefull or not to include 302/307 - The user could use it if he wanted.

But you are writing that a 302 in HTTP1.0 is called "Moved Temporarily". Which is what I have been doing so far. Then I read some articles saying it was actually called 302 Found..Which started the confusion, and completed it when I read 307 were pretty much the same.

So now: I am allways writing HTTP1.0, when I do my redirects. Why would I do that instead of HTTP1.1 - What is the difference here? Does Google crawl your site, and get different information if a HTTP1.0 has been used instead of a HTTP1.1?

I will stick to using HTTP1.0(302 Moved Temporarily), as far as I know it does the job, right?
If the 302 gets into use in the CMS at all.

Good explanation of 1.0/1.1 here: http://www8.org/w8-papers/5c-protocols/key/key.html

So if you're using 1.0, you can't use 307 (*I think*).