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A redirect (301/302) is a server instruction that sends visitors and search engines from one URL to another. A 301 tells everyone the move is permanent. A 302 says it is only temporary. That single difference decides whether your old page passes its ranking power to the new one. So picking the right code protects both your traffic and your rankings.
A redirect happens at the server level, before the page even loads. When someone visits an old URL, the server replies with a status code and a fresh address. The browser then quietly fetches the new page instead. To the visitor, it feels like one smooth click.
Think of it like a mail forwarding order at the post office. You moved house, so every letter sent to your old address gets rerouted automatically. Nobody has to know your new address by heart. The forwarding rule does all the work in the background.
The status code is what makes the rule readable to machines. A number in the 300 range means redirect, and browsers act on it instantly. The two you will meet most often are 301 and 302. There are close cousins, like 307 and 308, but the 301 and 302 pair covers most everyday store needs. Knowing which one you set is the difference between keeping and losing your search value.
On WooCommerce or Shopify, redirects handle the same job for web pages. A shopper who bookmarked a discontinued product still lands somewhere useful. A search engine crawling an old link still reaches live content. However, each hop costs a small round trip across the network. That is why every extra redirect adds a little load time. In practice, one clean redirect is barely noticeable. Several stacked together start to drag speed down, especially on mobile.
The status code is the entire message, so choosing it carefully matters. A 301 signals a permanent move, and Google treats it as a canonical instruction. In plain terms, it tells the search engine your new URL is now the official one. As a result, the old page hands its ranking signals to the destination for good.
A 302 signals a temporary move instead. Search engines keep the original URL in their index, because they expect the old page to return. That behavior fits short-term situations, like a flash sale page or a product that is briefly out of stock.
The mismatch causes trouble when the codes get swapped. Use a 302 for a permanent move, and the new URL may struggle to inherit the old rankings. Google has confirmed that permanent redirects don’t cause a loss in PageRank when set up correctly. This is also why a redirect works alongside a canonical tag, since both help search engines pick one true URL. For most store changes meant to stick, a permanent redirect is the safer default.
Every quality link pointing at your old page carries value, often called link equity. A clean redirect passes that value along to the new URL. That is how you keep rankings you spent months earning. Trouble starts when redirects pile up into chains.
Google can follow up to 10 hops in a single redirect chain. Still, it recommends keeping that number well under five. Each extra hop bleeds a little authority and adds load time. Redirect loops are even worse, because the page never resolves for the visitor.
Another common leak is pointing an old product straight at your homepage. The topics no longer match, so the signals mostly evaporate. A better move is redirecting to the closest live category or replacement product. Meanwhile, the stronger your backlinks and Domain Rating, the more you have to lose from sloppy redirects. In short, treat redirects as a way to protect equity, not just to patch a broken link.
Imagine a mid-sized outdoor gear store called Trailhead Supply. It runs on WooCommerce and sells hundreds of products. Over two years, it earned solid backlinks to a popular winter jacket page. Now that jacket is discontinued, and the team wants to restructure the whole category.
The store manager, Dana, has three cleanup jobs on her list. First, the discontinued jacket needs a home for its incoming links. Next, a batch of out-of-stock items will return in spring. Finally, the entire /gear/ URL structure is moving to /shop/.
Dana uses a permanent 301 redirect for the discontinued jacket. She points it to the closest replacement jacket, not the homepage. For the seasonal items, she chooses temporary 302 redirects. That keeps those URLs indexed for when stock returns. For the big URL move, she maps every old /gear/ link to its new /shop/ match, one to one.
The payoff shows up over the following weeks. Because the jacket used a permanent redirect, its hard-won ranking signals flow to the replacement. That page climbs, and the lost link value is recovered. The seasonal 302s keep the old URLs ready, so nothing gets re-indexed the wrong way.
The big /shop/ migration is the riskiest step. Dana avoids chains by mapping each URL directly, with no extra hops. She also updates her internal links to point at the new /shop/ paths. Then she resubmits a fresh XML sitemap so Google recrawls quickly. Because she skipped shortcuts, Trailhead keeps its organic traffic steady through the move. One sloppy chain, by contrast, could have quietly drained months of equity.
Both codes send users to a new page, but they whisper different things to search engines. Choosing between them comes down to one question. Is the move permanent or not?
A 301 is your tool for permanent changes. Use it for discontinued products, merged pages, an HTTP-to-HTTPS switch, or a full domain migration. It moves ranking signals to the new URL and keeps them there.
A 302 is your tool for temporary changes. Use it when a page will come back, such as a product on backorder or a seasonal landing page. It leaves the original URL in the index, ready for its return.
The costly mistake is using a 302 for a permanent move. The new page may never fully inherit the old authority. When in doubt about permanence, most stores are safer defaulting to a 301. You can always change it later if plans shift.
A simple rule helps here. If you would not want the old URL to ever rank again, use a 301. If the old URL still has a future, reach for a 302. That one check prevents most of the redirect mistakes that quietly cost stores traffic.
It depends on whether the move is permanent. For permanent changes, a 301 is better, because it passes ranking signals to the new URL. For temporary changes, a 302 is correct, since it keeps the old URL indexed. Using the wrong one is where SEO problems usually begin. When a change is meant to last, default to a 301.
A single redirect has a tiny, usually unnoticeable cost. The trouble comes from redirect chains, where each hop adds another round trip. On mobile connections, those delays stack up fast. Google can follow up to 10 hops, but it urges you to keep chains short. To stay fast, map old URLs straight to their final destination whenever you can.
Handled well, very little is lost. A permanent redirect to the closest replacement passes the old page’s signals along. That protects the backlinks and authority you built. However, redirecting every dead product to your homepage wastes those signals, because the topics do not match. So point each product at the most relevant live page instead.
Redirects are one of the quietest but most powerful tools in your SEO kit. Get the 301 versus 302 choice right. Then you protect rankings, link equity, and the shopper experience through every store change. Treat them as a strategy, not an afterthought, and your growth stays safe even as your URLs evolve.
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