Google has posted a new video in the #AskGooglebot series. In it, search employee John Mueller answered a question related to the use of redirects when moving a site.
According to Mueller, specialists mainly use two types of redirects on sites: 301 and 302. So, the 301st redirect signals that the page has been moved on a permanent basis, and 302 indicates a temporary redirect. If you are migrating your site, the correct solution is to use the first option.
As for the time frame during which the redirect must remain active, Google’s recommendations remain the same: 301 redirects must remain on the site for at least a year. Why a year? Because Google takes time to process big changes like site relocations.
If the redirects persist for less than a year, then Google may not have enough time to determine that the content has been moved permanently, says SearchEngines.
“At Google, we try to re-render all pages at least every few months. Most of the pages are checked more frequently. However, the amount of crawl is limited and there are many pages that we would like to crawl, so we have to prioritize. When the URL changes, our systems need to see the change in the redirect form multiple times in order to register it. To be sure that the redirect has been seen multiple times, we recommend that you keep the redirects for at least a year.”
NIX Solutions reminds that Google has repeatedly said that redirects should remain on the site for at least a year. In July, Search Engineer Gary Ilsh confirmed the recommendation was valid. Now this has also been done by John Mueller.