0

I have a domain which will not have any actual content for a year or maybe more, and I want to redirect for the time being. Should I opt for a 301 or 302 redirect? The site is for an academic research project, and the redirect will point to an associated info page on our institution's main site. My main concern lies with how any redirect might affect our Google ranking, though we do not expect a Google search to be the main means by which users actually arrive at our site.

Thanks

Improve this question

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
0

You should use a 302, as 301 is a permanent redirect that indicates to browsers and search engines "this site has moved over here, and isn't coming back". Chrome and Firefox cache a 301 with no expiration by default, meaning users encountering one may never again see the site, even years later.

If you don't expect users to stumble across the domain, you might also consider a 503 Service Unavailable response rather than redirecting.

Improve this answer
5
  • Thanks. Indeed I knew 301 was permanent, but I wasn't sure how long 'temporary' would really mean in the case of 302... I guess a year is still 'temporary'! I was unaware of the Chrome/Firefox behaviour, thanks for that info.
    – ChrisM
    Feb 10, 2016 at 15:06
  • 1
    @ChrisM If you know roughly when the site'll open up, you could consider putting an Expires and a Retry-After header on the 302/503. Or just put a week/month-long value in there so the engines keep checking back periodically.
    – ceejayoz
    Feb 10, 2016 at 15:13
  • Is there a possibility that the target of the 302 redirect might be penalized? I don't own that site, and don't want to inadvertently cause problems for it with respect to indexing, SEO, etc (sorry for delayed follow-up).
    – ChrisM
    Feb 16, 2016 at 11:37
  • @ChrisM If you could damage someone else's site via 302s it'd be widely abused. Shouldn't be an issue, it's a common use case.
    – ceejayoz
    Feb 16, 2016 at 15:08
  • Thanks, good point. Just wanted to make 100% sure. Set it up now, all good.
    – ChrisM
    Feb 16, 2016 at 18:48

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .