Guide · Status codes & redirects
301, 302 or 410: Which Status Code Is Right When
The decision follows a fixed logic
The decision follows a simple logic: if there’s an equivalent successor, set a 301 redirect. If the change is truly temporary, a 302. If the content is gone without replacement, respond with 410. And if the page still has traffic or backlinks: keep it instead of deleting. Google treats both redirect types similarly today – but only after a transition period, and that’s exactly where the mistakes happen.
The four options – a decision logic
For every URL that’s due to be dropped or moved, I check four questions in this order:
- Does the page still have value? Traffic in the Search Console, backlinks, internal links. If yes: don’t delete – keep or revise.
- Is there an equivalent successor? Then 301. Equivalent means: the visitor finds there what they were looking for – not just the homepage.
- Is the page coming back? Maintenance window, seasonal promotion, A/B test: 302. Only then.
- Gone without replacement? Then 410 (“Gone”) – the honest signal to Google to remove the URL from the index promptly.
Status codes at a glance
| Status code | Meaning | SEO effect |
|---|---|---|
| 200 OK | Page is reachable and delivers content | Normal state, no action needed |
| 301 Moved Permanently | Permanent redirect | Transfers signals to the target URL, standard for moves |
| 302 Found | Temporary redirect | Target URL only takes over signals with a delay |
| 404 Not Found | Page not found | Rechecked by Google several times before it drops from the index |
| 410 Gone | Deliberately removed, no replacement | Clear signal, usually disappears from the index faster than 404 |
The table shows the codes that are actually relevant in daily SEO work. All other 4xx and 5xx codes are usually technical errors, not a strategic decision.
301: the standard for every move
The permanent redirect transfers the old URL’s signals to the new one – Google confirms in the official docs that server-side redirects are the strongest way to communicate a move. The lifespan matters: Google recommends keeping redirects active for at least a year; from practice, I advise permanent for important pages – backlinks don’t age.
The most common 301 mistake isn’t the missing redirect, but the chain: old → interim → new → new slug. Every station costs crawl time, and from about five hops Google gives up. Always shorten chains to a single jump.
302: almost always the wrong choice
The search volume for “302 seo” is small, the problem behind it big: 302 is usually set accidentally because it’s the default in some systems. The consequence is no drama – Google treats a permanently standing 302 like a 301 after some time – but the transition period is unnecessary blur: the old URL stays in the index longer, the new one takes over more slowly. Mnemonic: 302 only if you know the return date.
410 instead of 404: deleting with notice
A deleted page without a successor should not redirect to the homepage – Google treats such “soft redirects” as soft 404s, and the user lands confused in nowhere. A clean 410 says: deliberately removed. In practice, 410 URLs usually disappear from the index faster than 404s, because Google initially rechecks 404 several times as a possible random error.
The relaunch case: where visibility really gets lost
Most ranking losses after a relaunch have the same cause: the redirect concept was missing or only covered the main pages. How much is at stake is shown by a study by Ahrefs across a good two million websites: 66.5 percent of all links set to these domains since 2013 are now dead.
Categories, old blog slugs, parameter URLs – everything that carried backlinks or rankings runs into 404. That’s why every relaunch should be preceded by a complete crawl of the old domain plus a GSC comparison, and every URL gets one of the four decisions from the decision tree above. The overall framework for this work is provided by technical SEO.
Common mistakes
Redirecting everything to the homepage
Soft 404 for Google, dead end for users. Without an equivalent successor, 410 is more honest than a redirect into nowhere.
302 as a permanent solution
Delays signal transfer without any benefit. 302 only belongs where a concrete return date is fixed.
Leaving redirect chains in place
Old → interim → new costs crawl time. After every relaunch, crawl once and shorten to one hop.
Treating 404 pages as a problem across the board
A 404 for URLs that never existed is correct – only URLs with traffic, backlinks or internal links need a decision.
Frequently asked questions about status codes and redirects
Does a 301 redirect lose link equity?
According to Google, no PageRank is lost through the redirect itself. What matters in practice is the relevance of the target – a redirect to a different topic works like none at all.
How long does a redirect have to stay active?
At least one year according to Google. For URLs with backlinks: permanently.
404 or 410 – which is better?
For deliberately deleted content, 410. A 404 isn’t wrong, but Google rechecks it more often before the URL drops from the index.
How do I find all URLs that need a redirect?
Crawl of the old website (for example with Screaming Frog) plus a Search Console export of pages with impressions plus a backlink list. The intersection is the redirect map.
Viktor Pásztor
Viktor Pásztor is an SEO freelancer in Berlin, has been in digital marketing for over 15 years and manages around 15 client projects in parallel, mostly e-commerce and B2B. He has been working 100 % remotely for more than five years – with WordPress, Shopify, Shopware and TYPO3. More about Viktor Pásztor
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