What Is 301 Redirect?
301 Redirect is an HTTP status code (defined in RFC 9110) that tells browsers and search engine crawlers a requested URL has permanently moved to a new location, supplied in the Location response header. Search engines treat it as a signal to transfer indexing and ranking signals from the old URL to the new one and eventually drop the old URL from their index.
How 301 Redirect Works
When a client requests a URL, the server responds with the status line HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently and a Location header containing the absolute or relative target, for example Location: https://example.com/new-page. The response body is usually a short HTML stub, which browsers ignore. The browser then issues a new GET request to the target URL automatically, so the user sees the destination page and an updated address bar without any interaction. The 301 status is defined as cacheable by default in RFC 9110, and browsers cache it aggressively, sometimes indefinitely unless Cache-Control or Expires headers say otherwise. This is why a mistaken 301 is hard to undo: visitors who already received it may keep being sent to the wrong place without ever contacting your server again. Test new rules with a 302 first, and only switch to 301 once the mapping is confirmed. For search engines, Googlebot and Bingbot follow the Location header and treat the 301 as a strong signal that the target should be the canonical, indexed URL. Google has stated that 3xx redirects do not cause PageRank loss, so backlinks pointing to the old URL continue to contribute to the new one. Consolidation is not instant, though: the crawler must recrawl the old URL, see the redirect, and reprocess the destination, which can take days to weeks depending on crawl frequency. One technical caveat concerns request methods. Historically, many clients rewrite a POST to a GET when following a 301, which can break form submissions and API calls. The 308 Permanent Redirect status was introduced to preserve the original method and body, so use 308 for permanent moves of non-GET endpoints. Redirects can be issued at several layers: the web server (Apache mod_alias or mod_rewrite, Nginx return or rewrite directives), a CDN or edge rule, the hosting platform (such as a _redirects file or a vercel.json config), or application code. Server-level and edge redirects are fastest because they avoid executing application logic. Client-side options like meta refresh or JavaScript location changes are not true 301 redirects and do not reliably pass signals.
Best Practices for 301 Redirect
Map every old URL to the single most relevant new URL, ideally a one-to-one match in content, rather than sending everything to the homepage, which search engines often treat as a soft 404. Eliminate redirect chains and loops by pointing the old URL directly at the final destination, because each extra hop adds latency and Google follows only a limited number of hops (about 10) before giving up. Update internal links, canonical tags, hreflang annotations, and XML sitemap entries to the new URL so crawlers are not routed through redirects on every visit. Keep redirects in place for at least 12 months, and longer if the old URL still has third-party backlinks, then verify the result with curl -I, a crawler such as Screaming Frog, and the Page indexing report in Google Search Console.
301 Redirect and Canvas Builder
Canvas Builder outputs clean, static HTML5 pages with Bootstrap 5, so each page maps to a predictable file path that is easy to redirect from or to when you restructure a site. Since redirects live in your server or host config, you keep full control over 301 rules, while the semantic markup and editable head section make it simple to update canonical URLs and internal links after moving pages.
Start building freeFrequently asked questions
What is the difference between a 301 and a 302 redirect?
A 301 signals a permanent move, so search engines transfer ranking signals to the new URL and eventually remove the old one from the index. A 302 signals a temporary move, so the original URL generally stays indexed. Use 302 (or 307) for short-term situations like maintenance or A/B tests, and 301 (or 308) when the change is permanent.
Does a 301 redirect hurt SEO or lose link equity?
Google has said that 301 redirects do not lose PageRank, so a well-implemented redirect passes the old URL's signals to the new one. Rankings can still fluctuate temporarily while the pages are recrawled and reprocessed. Problems usually come from poor implementation: redirect chains, irrelevant destinations, or redirects that are removed too early.
How does Canvas Builder handle 301 redirects?
Canvas Builder generates static, production-ready HTML using the Canvas template (Bootstrap 5), and redirects are configured at the server or host level rather than inside the HTML. You can add rules to .htaccess, an Nginx config, or a _redirects file when you deploy the exported files. Because the generated pages use clean relative links and standard head elements, it is straightforward to update internal links and canonical tags to match your new URLs after a migration.