What is 301 redirect?
A `301` redirect is an answer from the server, not an entry on the page. When someone calls the old address, the server responds with the status code `301 Moved Permanently` and the new address; browsers and crawlers follow immediately. Google treats `301` and `308` as equivalent permanent redirects and carries the signals of the old address across to the new one. The temporary variant `302` says the opposite and is the wrong choice for a move. Browser-side solutions such as a meta refresh or a JavaScript redirect are weaker and slower.
It is needed wherever an address disappears for good: a change of domain, a rebuild of the URL structure, the switch to HTTPS, the merging of duplicate pages, and deleted pages that have a genuine successor. Three rules decide the quality. Every old address points individually at its content equivalent, not wholesale at the home page. It stays at one hop, because chains of redirects cost time and clarity. And every internal link is rewritten to the new target rather than running through the redirect indefinitely.
The time frame is what most people underestimate. In its documentation on site moves, Google recommends keeping the redirects for as long as possible, generally at least a year. The change of address in Search Console runs alongside for 180 days; after that Google recognises no relationship between the old and the new site. What a redirect can never do is move a name. Someone searching for the old company name lands on no old address at all, but in the search results.
Why does 301 redirect matter?
Google's documentation on site moves states a clear floor: keep the redirects in place for as long as possible, generally at least one year. Switch the old domain off after three months because the project feels finished, and you throw away precisely the part that carries your accumulated visibility across to the new address.
301 redirect in practice
- 01On a domain change every old URL gets its own `301` to the matching new address, rather than all of them landing on the home page.
- 02Two near-identical guide pages are merged: the weaker one points permanently at the stronger one instead of both running side by side.
- 03An expired campaign page with no successor gets no redirect but an honest 410 or 404 - a redirect to the home page would read to Google as a dead end.
