When you click a short link and land on a website, a redirect happened. When you type an old URL and end up on a new page, a redirect happened. When you visit a website without www. and the page loads with it anyway — redirect.
Redirects are one of the most fundamental mechanics of the web, and they show up constantly in link tracking, SEO, and website management. Here's what they are, the critical difference between types, and how to use them without accidentally hurting your search rankings.
What a redirect actually does
A redirect is an instruction that tells a browser (or search engine): "The content you're looking for isn't here anymore — go here instead."
When someone requests a URL (by clicking a link or typing in an address), the web server can respond in a few ways:
- 200 OK — "Yes, here's the page." Normal.
- 301 Moved Permanently — "This content has permanently moved to a new URL."
- 302 Found (Temporary Redirect) — "This content is temporarily at a different URL, but come back here in the future."
- 404 Not Found — "This page doesn't exist."
The number is called the HTTP status code. For our purposes, the two that matter most are 301 and 302.
301 vs. 302: what's the actual difference?
301 — Permanent redirect
Use this when a page has permanently moved to a new URL and will never go back. For example:
- You changed your website's URL structure (
/blog/post→/articles/post) - You rebranded and changed domains
- You merged two pages into one
With a 301, search engines transfer the SEO authority (often called "link juice" or "page rank") from the old URL to the new one. If the old page had backlinks and ranked in Google, a 301 preserves most of that ranking value and passes it to the new URL.
302 — Temporary redirect
Use this when a page is temporarily in a different location. For example:
- A/B testing a new page design
- A page is under maintenance and you're temporarily pointing to another URL
- A promotional campaign page that will revert after the sale
With a 302, search engines don't transfer ranking authority. They keep the original URL in their index and expect it to come back. If you use a 302 when you actually mean permanent, you can lose ranking authority that would have transferred with a 301.
What type of redirect do link shorteners use?
Short link services typically use 301 redirects by default — which is correct for most use cases. When you create links.yourbrand.com/product and it redirects to your product page, it should be a 301 because the short link is intentionally meant to go to that destination.
gometrify uses 301 redirects by default, which means:
- The redirect follows the fastest path to the destination
- Browsers cache the redirect after the first click, making subsequent visits faster
- Any SEO value of the branded short link URL passes through to the destination
However, if you're using a short link for A/B testing (where you'll be changing the destination), you'd want a 302 — so the redirect isn't cached and each visit makes a fresh request. Most advanced link management platforms let you choose the redirect type per link.
Do short links hurt SEO?
This is a common concern, and the short answer is: no, when done correctly.
Search engines follow redirects. If you share a 301 redirect link, Google will eventually understand where the final destination is and index that page — not the short link URL.
What can hurt SEO:
- Redirect chains. If link A → link B → link C before reaching the destination, each hop adds latency and dilutes any SEO value being passed. Keep it to one redirect maximum.
- Using a 302 when you mean 301. If Google thinks a move is temporary, it won't update its index.
- Redirecting to a broken page. A redirect to a 404 is worse than no redirect. Check your destination URLs regularly.
Use our Free Redirect Checker to verify that your links resolve correctly and aren't creating redirect chains.
Redirects in link management: practical tips
When you change a product URL, update your links. If you're using tracked short links and the destination URL changes, update the destination in your link dashboard rather than creating a new short link. Anyone who previously bookmarked or shared your short link will still land in the right place, and you preserve your historical click data.
Don't delete short links that are live in the wild. If you shared a link in a tweet from two years ago, that tweet is still there. Someone clicking it today will hit a 404 if you've deleted the short link. Archive rather than delete — keep the redirect active even for campaigns that are long over.
Check for redirect chains before sharing. If your short link → your old domain → your new domain → the final page, that's three hops before the user lands anywhere. Slow for the user, bad for any tracking data, and bad for passing SEO value. Fix the destination at the source.