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The two main domain redirects used are 301 redirects and 302 redirects but are they both search engine friendly?

Redirection is a technique for moving visitors to a different site when the address has been changed and visitors are familiar with the old address. An example of a redirect - a user goes to example.com and it redirects to newexample.com.

The 301 redirect is the most efficient and search engine friendly method for page redirection. A 301 redirect is easy to implement and should preserve your search engine rankings for that particular page. The 301 is interpreted by search engines as a permanent move.

The 302 redirect on the other hand is a temporary redirect and is not search engine friendly. Search engines will interpret these redirects as a temporary URL 'park', and take their time figuring out how to handle the setup.

In 2004 Business.com made the mistake of using a 302 redirect on their site and in turn their site disappeared from Google's index dropping their page rank from 8 to 0.

If you are not sure what redirect your site is using and would like a detailed report on areas your site is performing well in and areas that need improving then take a look at our Search Readiness Report.