What is a 307 Temporary Redirect?
A 307 is the stricter sibling of the 302. Both mean the page has moved temporarily and the original URL should stay in the index. The difference is a technicality that turns out to matter: a 307 requires the browser to repeat the request to the new address using the same method and the same data. A form submitted with POST is submitted again as POST, with the form fields intact. A 302 permits the browser to downgrade that to a simple GET, which can quietly drop whatever was being sent.
You will also meet 307 in a place where there is no server at all. Browsers use an internal 307 to upgrade http to https for sites on the HSTS preload list, which is why the code shows up in developer tools on sites that never configured it.
Why it matters
Why a 307 Temporary Redirect matters
For a brand site made of pages, the choice between 302 and 307 rarely changes anything a visitor or a search engine notices. For anything with a form, a checkout, an API or a login behind it, it changes everything, because a redirect that loses the submitted data breaks the flow. Sign-ups that vanish, orders that fail silently, newsletter subscriptions that never arrive: a surprising number of those trace back to the wrong redirect code.
The SEO point is the same as for any temporary redirect: the original URL keeps its place in the index and the destination does not inherit its authority. That is correct when the move is temporary and a mistake when it is not.
In practice
How a 307 Temporary Redirect works in practice
- 01
Use it when the redirect sits in the path of a request that carries data. Temporarily moving a form handler, routing a submission to a different server during maintenance, pointing an endpoint at a replacement for a few days. Developers choose it; marketers mostly need to know it exists so they can ask for it when a campaign form stops working after an infrastructure change.
- 02
For ordinary content pages, treat it like a 302. Review the list of temporary redirects regularly, and when a move turns out to be permanent, swap it for a 301 (or its strict equivalent, the 308) so search engines can consolidate the old URL into the new one.
Watch out
What people get wrong about 307 Temporary Redirects
Expecting it to pass ranking signals. It will not, and it is not supposed to. A 307 used for a permanent move leaves the old URL alive in search results and the new one fighting for a place it should simply have been handed. The opposite confusion is panicking at 307s in a browser audit that are really HSTS upgrades, which are a security feature working as designed.
Assuming all redirects are the same. The code is the message. Choose 301 or 308 when a page is gone for good, 302 or 307 when it is coming back, and 307 or 308 specifically when a request carries data that must survive the hop.
