What is a 302 redirect?
A 302 is the status code for found, which in practice means moved temporarily. The server sends the browser to a different URL for now, but the old one remains the real address and should stay in the index. It exists for situations where a page is briefly somewhere else: a product out of stock pointing at its category, a homepage swapped for a launch takeover, a visitor sent to a regional version of a page based on their location.
To a visitor a 302 is indistinguishable from a 301. To a search engine the two are different promises, and the whole point of the code is to make the right one.
Why it matters
Why a 302 redirect matters
Because search engines take the word temporary seriously. Faced with a 302, Google keeps the original URL in the index and continues to send people to it, expecting it to come back. That is exactly right for a two-week promotion and exactly wrong for a page you have retired. Pick the wrong one and the index drifts out of step with the site: old pages that linger, new pages that struggle to take over.
The subtler cost is link equity. A 302 is designed not to consolidate signals onto the destination, because the destination is not meant to be the permanent home. A site that has been redirecting with 302s for years, usually by accident, can be sitting on a lot of authority that never arrives where it should.
In practice
How a 302 redirect works in practice
- 01
Use it for anything with an end date. A seasonal landing page that will revert, an A/B test that sends half of visitors to a variant, a maintenance page while a section is being rebuilt, a stock-out that will be back. The rule of thumb is simple: if you expect to delete the redirect later, it is a 302.
- 02
Then review them. Every few months, pull the list of live 302s and ask whether each one is still temporary. Most sites find a handful that have been in place for years, pointing at pages that are never coming back, and those get converted to 301s so the index can finally move on. A redirect audit after every campaign is the cheapest version of this habit.
Watch out
What people get wrong about 302 redirects
Using a 302 because it was the default. Many platforms and plugins create 302s unless told otherwise, so a permanent move gets labeled temporary without anyone deciding. Check what your platform does before a migration. The reverse mistake is rarer but worse: a 301 on a temporary move, which can get the original URL dropped from the index before the promotion ends.
Trusting that Google will work it out. It often does; Google has said a long-lived 302 may eventually be treated as a 301. But eventually is not a plan, and the way to control what the index does is to send the code you mean.
