Owners of a website, have probably come across the term “302-Redirect” before. But what exactly is a 302-Redirect?
The http status code 302 “Found” signals to the requesting client that the requested web page is available, but is temporarily located somewhere else. The whole thing is called “Found” or “Moved Temporarily”. This redirection is used when a piece of content is available at a different URL for a certain period of time. So, unlike other types of redirects, such as 301 and 303 Redirects, a 302 redirect does not move the page permanently.
Why use a 302-Redirect?
There are several reasons why website owners should use a 302-Redirect on their website. For example, if maintenance work needs to be performed on the website and users need to be temporarily redirected to a different URL, a 302-Redirect can be used. The same applies when website owners change the URL of a page, but do not yet want to permanently redirect users to the new URL.
How to implement a 302-Redirect
Implementing a 302-Redirect is relatively simple. If Apache is used as the web server software, simply add the following line of code to the .htaccess file:
Redirect /oldpage.html http://www.example.com/newpage.html
If Nginx is used as web server software, the following line of code can be inserted in configuration file:
location /oldpage.html {
return302 http://www.example.com/newpage.html
}
Once website owners have added the appropriate code to their web server’s configuration file, visitors trying to access the old URL will be automatically redirected to the new one
Users should note that 302-Redirects are intended only for temporary changes. If users need to be permanently redirected from one URL to another, a 301 or 303 Redirect should be used instead.
Thematically relevant sub-pages:
