What is Redirect? 301, 302, 300, 101

If you are searching for what is redirect? how to use redirect? why need a redirect? Then you are in the right place. I will describe every detail about redirect. Hope this post will solve your problem.

There are so many things to cover up in this post. I will describe it in short but hope it will be helpful for you.

So, let’s jump into the topic.

What is Redirect?

Redirect is the way to sent users and search engines to a different URL from the requested one. Redirection is the process of forwarding one URL to another URL.

Type of Redirects

• 301 – Moved Permanently
• 302 – Found or Temporary relocation
• 300 – Multiple options
• Meta Refresh Redirect
• 101 – Protocol change

Let’s discuss this type of redirect in detail:

What is 301 Redirect?

301 redirect is the permanent redirect. 301 redirect is the way to sent users and search engines to a new URL from the original requested URL. 301 is the server-side redirect.

You can use this for your SEO work. This is the best method for implementing redirects on a website.

For an example:

www.website.com/oldurl to www.website.com/newurl

You can do this via 301 redirects.

301 Redirect Uses

You can implement 301 redirects for various cases. You can use it as an SEO tool.

• Changing an URL
• Outdated content to New content
• Migrating content
• Migrating website

What is 302 Redirect?

302 redirect as common as 301 redirects and are considered a “temporary relocation”. You can use 302 redirects when you change the content/page temporarily.

301 redirects and 302 redirects can do the same work, but 301 redirects pass the strong signal to the search engines. So, 302 redirect is truly temporarily redirecting.

302 Redirect Uses

You can implement 302 redirects for various cases.

• Page testing
• Content uploading/changing

What is 300 Redirect?

300 redirect is multiple options redirects. You can redirect multiple resources from the original one. It’s rarely used.

300 Redirect Uses

You can implement 300 redirects for various cases.

• Multilingual content
• Different file extensions

What is Meta Refresh Redirect?

Meta refresh redirect is a client-side redirect. Unlike 301 and 302 redirects that happen on the webserver, a meta refresh redirect instructs the web browser to go to a different web page after a specified period.

This type of Redirect is not recommended unless you access the .htaccess file.

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="2; URL='https://website.com/blog/content' /> 

The number (2) is the amount of time in seconds before the browser redirects to the specified URL.

What is 101 Redirect?

101 redirect is a protocol change that used to be more common for things like HTTP to HTTPS.

301 Redirect or rel=”canonical” 

Clear first thing first. 301 redirect and rel=”canonical” both are different. Do not use rel=”canonical” as a substitute for 301 redirects.

Both are important and both have different purposes for work. Don’t mix it.

301 redirect is a permanent redirect that sends users and search engines to a new page from the original requested.

rel=”canonical” is an indication or order for search engines to which page they need to index. We use it to avoid the duplicate issue.

If you are still confused, read about Canonical Tag.

Redirect Implement

If you are using CMS platforms then you will get more options for redirects. You can handle redirects easily from CMS.

For example, if you are using WordPress then you can do this work easily with Rank Math or Yoast SEO plugin. Also, there are a lot of redirects plugin for redirects.

301 Redirect .htaccess

A common way of implementing redirects is through a .htaccess file, which runs on Apache servers. Below we’ve listed some common .htaccess directives for redirection.

• Domain Redirect

Replace the example domain with your new redirect destination.

Redirect 301 / https://www.website.com/

• Redirect Single Page

Use this redirect across different domains, or on your site.

Redirect 301 /old/ http://www.website.com/new/

• Apache mod_rewrite

Use Apache mod_rewrite in your .htaccess file for more flexible redirection. You can use it for http:// to https://

RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
rewritecond %{http_host} ^domain.com [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

PHP Redirect

You can apply redirect on PHP too. Check the below example:

<?php
header("Location: https://www.example.com/", true, 301);
exit();
?>

Nginx Redirect

If your website running on an Nginx web server then in the “nginx.conf” file you can add a server block to handle these redirect requests:

server { 
listen 80; 
server_name old-website.com; 
return 301 $scheme://new-website.com$request_uri; 
}

Lighttpd Redirect

If your website running on a Lighttpd web server you make a redirect by first importing the mod_redirect module and using url.redirect:

server.modules = ( 
"mod_redirect" 
) 
$HTTP["host"] =~ "^(www\.)?old-website.com$" { 
url.redirect = ( 
"^/(.*)$" => "http://www.new-website.com/$1", 
) 
}

Conclusion

Hope you are getting all answers about what is redirect and how to use it. Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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Sandipan Pramanick

Hi, I am Sandipan Pramanick from Kolkata, India

I am very glad that you are here and checked out my website. I am a professional Graphics, Web Designer and Passionate about SEO, Digital Marketing.

I am in this field around 5+ years. Currently, I am working in a private company as a SEO & Digital Marketing Executive, Asst. Graphics – Web Designer.