A 301 redirect is an HTTP status response that permanently sends a browser and a crawler from one URL to another. It tells search engines that the original URL has moved for good and that the target URL should now receive the ranking signals — links, relevance, history — that the old URL accumulated.
Definition
A 301 redirect is an HTTP status response that permanently sends a browser and a crawler from one URL to another. It tells search engines that the original URL has moved for good and that the target URL should now receive the ranking signals — links, relevance, history — that the old URL accumulated.
Most of that equity transfers, though the process takes time as the search engine re-crawls and re-processes the affected URLs.
301 is the correct tool for permanent changes: consolidating www and non-www or http and https onto one canonical form, moving a page to a new URL, merging two pages, retiring a URL in favour of a better one, or migrating a whole site. It differs from a 302 (temporary redirect, which signals the move is not permanent and equity handling is more conservative) and from a canonical tag (a hint that leaves both URLs live and accessible).
In context
On iGaming affiliate sites, 301s come up constantly: a site restructure changes URL paths, an operator is removed and its review is merged into a comparison, an old bonus-code page is replaced by a current guide, or the site moves to a new domain. Done well, a redirect map covers every changed URL with a single-hop 301 to the most relevant live equivalent, internal links are updated to point directly at the new URLs, the XML sitemap is refreshed, and rankings and traffic recover within weeks.
The failure modes are worth knowing because they leak equity. Redirect chains (A→B→C) dilute signal and slow crawling, so chains should be collapsed to A→C. Redirecting many old URLs to the homepage instead of to a relevant page throws away their topical value and is often treated as a soft 404. Leaving old internal links pointing at redirected URLs wastes crawl and passes signal through an extra hop.
And forgetting to redirect at all after removing a page turns inbound links and bookmarks into 404s. A migration or restructure is largely an exercise in getting the redirect map complete and clean.
Worked example
An affiliate migrates from a dated URL structure to a cleaner one. It builds a redirect map covering all 12,000 URLs with single-hop 301s to the matching new URL, updates every internal link, and resubmits the sitemap.
Traffic dips about 15% for two weeks then recovers fully, and there are no orphaned 404s in the crawl afterward.
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