301 redirect: what it is and why migrations need one

A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect. It tells a browser and a search engine that a page has moved for good, and that the new URL should be treated as the replacement. The visitor lands on the new page. Search engines can pass the ranking signals from the old URL across, instead of treating the old address as a dead end.

A 302 is different. It means the move is temporary, so search engines are less likely to transfer those signals. For a website migration, a platform change or a URL tidy-up, the redirect you want is almost always a 301.

Why does a 301 redirect matter?

Most ranking loss after a rebuild does not come from the new design. It comes from changed URLs with no redirect, or from a redirect that points at the wrong page, or from a temporary redirect used by mistake. Anyone who bookmarked the old URL, and any site that still links to it, will hit a 404 unless you have a complete map.

If search traffic already sends you demos or sales conversations, this is not a technical nicety. It is how you keep the years of work already sitting on those URLs.

What does a good 301 setup look like?

A proper 301 setup has four parts.

An inventory of every live URL on the current site, including blog posts, filtered or paginated indexes you care about, PDFs and other files that attract links.A redirect map that pairs each old URL with its closest equivalent on the new site. If a page has no equivalent, the map still has a considered destination, usually the nearest parent or a sensible category, not a blanket send of everything to the homepage.Permanent 301 or 308 redirects, tested on staging before launch, then checked again on the day you go live.A decision to leave the redirects in place. Google's own guidance is to keep them for at least a year. In practice, teams that care about backlinks leave them in place indefinitely.

Goodspeed treats the redirect map as a named deliverable on every website migration, not as something squeezed into launch week. You can run a first pass yourself with the migration planner, which reads your sitemap, groups URLs and flags which paths can stay and which need a 301.

How does Goodspeed handle 301 redirects?

On a migration we crawl the current site, export the URL list, and draft the map before visual design is finished. Your team signs the map off. We implement it on staging, click through a sample of old URLs, and watch Search Console for 404s in the first 30 days after launch.

The same 67 steps we use internally are published as our SEO migration checklist. The supporting walkthrough is how to move a website without losing rankings.

Website migrations with us start from $10,000. The figure includes the audit, the signed-off map, on-page parity and the first 30 days of monitoring.

What does a typical 301 setup look like in practice?

A company moves a blog from /blog/post-name/ to /insights/post-name/. Every old post gets a 301 to the new slug. The blog index gets a 301 to the new index. Category URLs that no longer exist go to the nearest remaining topic, not to the homepage. After launch, Search Console is checked daily in the first week, then weekly for the rest of the month, so a missed URL is caught while it is still cheap to fix.

What are the common mistakes?

Using a 302 because a plugin made it the default.Redirecting every retired URL to the homepage, which looks like a soft 404 and wastes the relevance of the original page.Changing slugs during the redesign and updating the map after launch rather than before.Forgetting PDFs, trailing slashes, HTTP to HTTPS, and www versus non-www, so the "same" page exists at more than one address.Removing redirects after a few weeks because the new site is live now.

Common questions

What is the difference between a 301 and a 302 redirect?

A 301 is permanent. It tells search engines the new URL is the replacement and that ranking signals can move with it. A 302 is temporary, so those signals usually stay on the old URL. Use a 301 for a migration or a URL that will not be coming back.

How long should 301 redirects stay in place after a migration?

Keep them for at least a year, and longer if you can. Links and bookmarks to the old URLs can arrive years later. Taking the redirects down early is one of the simplest ways to create 404s and leak traffic.

Should every retired URL redirect to the homepage?

No. A blanket homepage redirect looks like a soft 404 and wastes the relevance of the original page. Send each URL to its closest equivalent, or to the nearest parent or category if the page has no replacement.

Can our team draft the redirect map, or do you have to do it?

You can run a first pass with the migration planner, which reads your sitemap and flags which paths can stay and which need a 301. On a project we still crawl the site, draft the map, and ask you to sign it off before launch. Migrations start from $10,000.

Which related terms should you read next?

Website migrationWebsite auditWebsite redesignCore Web VitalsThe rest of the glossary

If you already know the route, start at the matching guide, such as WordPress to Framer or Webflow to Framer. For a first look at cost, read how much a website migration costs.

You can also browse the glossary, the resources hub, try the migration planner, or book a call.