web dev//SEO//redirect

A response that sends the client from one URL to another. You arrive at an address and find a sign: "we moved here".

A response that sends the client from one URL to another. You arrive at an address and find a sign: "we moved here".

It is an HTTP status (301 permanent, 302 or 307 temporary) plus a Location header; the browser or the fetcher follows it. A permanent redirect tells the indexer to transfer the old URL's standing to the new one.

Chains of redirects cost a fetch each and eventually get cut off; loops make the page unreachable. Redirects are also how legacy URLs stay valid after a site restructures, as this site does for its old note paths.

A redirect changes where you are; a canonical only changes which copy gets the credit.