What Is 301 Redirect?

Why It Matters

When you move a website to a new domain, change your URL structure, or consolidate multiple domains into one, you need to tell search engines about the change. Without a 301 redirect, your old URLs return a 404 error — or worse, a 410 Gone — and all the SEO value those pages built over months or years is lost.

A 301 redirect is how you preserve that value. It tells Google and other search engines: “This page has permanently moved. Transfer the ranking power to the new location.” Every inbound link, every social share, every bookmark pointing to the old URL continues to work — and the SEO equity flows to your new domain.

The alternative — doing nothing, or using the wrong redirect type — means starting from scratch in search rankings. For businesses, that can mean months of lost organic traffic and revenue. Using a canonical URL tag won’t help here — you need a proper redirect. (See also: 302 redirect for when temporary redirects are appropriate.)

How It Works

When a browser or search engine requests a URL that has a 301 redirect configured, the server responds with:

• HTTP Status Code 301 (Moved Permanently)
• A Location header pointing to the new URL

The browser automatically follows the redirect to the new URL. Search engines note the permanent move and gradually update their index, replacing the old URL with the new one and transferring link equity.

Here’s what happens step by step:

1. A visitor (or Googlebot) requests https://old-domain.com/page
2. The server responds with 301 Moved Permanently and Location: https://new-domain.com/page
3. The browser silently follows the redirect — the visitor sees only the new URL
4. Search engines transfer ranking signals from the old URL to the new one

Common Mistakes

Using a 302 redirect instead of 301. Many registrars — including GoDaddy, Namecheap, and Hostinger — default to 302 (temporary) redirects in their built-in forwarding tools. This means search engines don’t transfer link equity, because they interpret 302 as “this is temporary, keep the old URL indexed.” If you’re permanently moving a domain, a 302 is silently destroying your SEO.

Creating redirect chains. If domain-a.com redirects to domain-b.com, which redirects to domain-c.com, you’ve created a chain. Each hop loses a small amount of link equity and adds latency. Google follows up to 5 hops but may lose patience before that. Keep it to a single redirect whenever possible.

Forgetting www vs non-www. Setting up a 301 for example.com but not www.example.com (or vice versa) means half your traffic gets a 404. Both versions need to be redirected.

Not redirecting HTTPS. If your old domain had HTTPS traffic, the redirect must also support HTTPS — otherwise browsers show a security error before the redirect even happens. Most registrar forwarding tools don’t support HTTPS redirects. (Learn more: SSL certificate.)

How Domain Forward Handles 301 Redirects

Domain Forward uses 301 redirects by default for all permanent forwarding rules. No configuration needed — you won’t accidentally end up with a 302.

• HTTPS included: Every redirect works over HTTPS automatically. SSL certificates are provisioned for your domain at no extra cost.
• www + root handled: Both the apex domain (example.com) and www.example.com are redirected — no separate setup needed.
• Path forwarding: Optionally preserve the URL path so old.com/blog/post redirects to new.com/blog/post instead of just new.com.
• Analytics: Track every redirect with click counts, geographic data, referrers, and device information.
• No hosting required: Point two DNS records (A record + CNAME) to Domain Forward and configure your redirect in the dashboard. No server, no .htaccess, no code.