What Does HTTP 302 Mean?

In simple terms, HTTP status codes are essentially standard response codes used to show the relationship between all the things that go on in the background when you travel from web page to web page: things like the user agent (i.e., your web browser), the web page you're trying to load, and any third-party web applications you might be running. Because of the complexity of how all those things interact, there are a ton of possible HTTP status codes you can run up against. What Does HTTP 302 Mean? One of the most common HTTP status codes is HTTP 302. This status occurs when a resource or page you're attempting to load has been temporarily moved to a different location -- via a 302 redirect. As opposed to 301 redirects -- which are used to permanently direct users from one location to another -- 302 redirects are temporary. The web server serving up the 302 redirect should immediately indicate the new location of the page to your browser, and should send you there right away. This type of tool will show you directly in your browser when you run into a redirect. If you're thinking about setting up 302 redirects on your own website, you should know that these types of temporary redirects aren't appreciated by Google. Google's crawler will follow and honor a permanent 301 redirect, but will ignore any temporary 302 redirects you set up.