Google explains how redirect choices affect ranking signals, canonicalization, and which URLs appear in Search.

Google’s Gary Illyes and Cherry Prommawin discussed how permanent and temporary redirects affect canonicalization and ranking signals. They explained that both can help Google recognize related URLs but that they also signal different intentions about which URL should represent the content in Search.

One of the first things they did was to set the table and explain the difference between a 301 and 302 redirect.

Google’s Cherry Prommawin started off the discussion by stating that regardless of what redirect is used, a web page is still going to be indexed by Google. She then affirmed that there are correct choices.

“First of all, relax. No matter which redirect you choose, one of your pages will stay in search and be part of AI training.

There are technically correct choices, but getting it wrong is not the end of the world. Google will still index a page. It’s really just a matter of which URL will show up.”

“Does Google actually care if both numbers, 301, 302, successfully take user to the new page anyway? Aren’t they basically doing the same job?”

The conversation next turns to deduplication which is the part where Google groups together similar pages then chooses one page as the one to represent all of the other similar pages in the search index.

“But we have to talk about the real battlefield here, the deduplication process.”

“Ah, the digital family reunion. This is where we look at a room full of identical siblings and try to organize them into a single happy family.

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