• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. Research & Trends
        3. Algorithm Updates
        4. Vanity URL's and http codes

        Moz Q&A is closed.

        After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

        Vanity URL's and http codes

        Algorithm Updates
        2
        4
        1314
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • Shawn_Huber
          Shawn_Huber last edited by

          We have a vanity URL that as recommended is using 301 http code, however it has been discovered the destination URL needs to be updated which creates a problem since most browsers and search engines cache 301 redirects.

          Is there a good way to figure out when a vanity should be a 301 vs 302/307?

          If all vanity URL's should use 301, what is the proper way of updating the destination URL?

          Is it a good rule of thumb that if the vanity URL is only going to be temporary and down the road could have a new destination URL to use 302, and all others 301?

          Cheers,

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • DanDeceuster
            DanDeceuster @Shawn_Huber last edited by

            Like I said in the last paragraph, if this is temporary, 302 redirect the original destination URL to the new destination URL as well as the redirecting URL to the new destination. If these changes are permanent, make them 301 instead of 302 redirects.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Shawn_Huber
              Shawn_Huber @DanDeceuster last edited by

              That does answer my question partly. How do you handle the cached URL for the original 301 that points to the invalid URL?

              Example. www.bob.com/hello points to www.bob.com/directory/folder/file.aspx

              It needs to now point to www.bob.com/directory/folder2/file2.aspx

              If browsers and search engines cache the first 301 since it's meant to be permanent, visitors that have been to the first URL will not get passed off to the new one.

              DanDeceuster 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • DanDeceuster
                DanDeceuster last edited by

                Let me make sure I understand you. You have a vanity URL like bit.ly or something. It redirects to your website which is bitly.com or something like that. This redirect is a 301 permanent redirect.

                Are you asking if bitly.com changed what you should do with the redirect? That's how I understood the question. So say bitly.com now goes to bitly.com/new or something along those lines.

                If this is the case, all you want to do is change your 301 redirect of bit.ly to the new destination URL and keep it a 301. That is, unless bitly.com/new is only a temporary URL. If it will be reverting back to bitly.com then don't do that.

                Instead, when you redirect bitly.com to bitly.com/new use a 302 redirect, keeping the 301 from bit.ly to bitly.com in tact. Hopefully that answers your question. Let me know if your scenario is different.

                Shawn_Huber 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                Browse Questions

                Explore more categories

                • Moz Tools

                  Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                • SEO Tactics

                  Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                • Community

                  Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                • Digital Marketing

                  Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                • Research & Trends

                  Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                • Support

                  Connect on product support and feature requests.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • BopDesign

                  Is it necessary to have unique H1's for pages in a pagination series (i.e. blog)?

                  A content issue that we're experiencing includes duplicate H1 issues within pages in a pagination series (i.e. blog). Does each separate page within the pagination need a unique H1 tag, or, since each page has unique content (different blog snippets on each page), is it safe to disregard this? Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks!

                  Algorithm Updates | | BopDesign
                  0
                • rwat

                  Can 'Jump link'/'Anchor tag' urls rank in Google for keywords?

                  E.g. www.website.com/page/#keyword-anchor-text Where the part after the # is a section of the page you can jump to, and the title of that section is a secondary keyword you want the page to rank for?

                  Algorithm Updates | | rwat
                  0
                • brantmk

                  Can hreflang tags still work when the Alternate URL is 301 redirecting to a translated URL in Japanese Characters?

                  My organization has several international sites 4 of them of which have translated URLs in either Japanese, Traditional Chinese, German & Canadian French. The hreflang tags we have set up on our United States look something like this: But when you actually go to http://www.domain.co.jp/it-security/ you are 301 redirected to the translated URL version: www.domain.co.jp/it-セキュリティ/
                  My question is, will Google still understand that the translated URL is the Alternate URL, or will this present errors? The hreflang tags are automated for each of our pages and would technically be hard to populate the hreflang with the translated URL version. However we could potentially make the hreflang something customized on a page level basis.

                  Algorithm Updates | | brantmk
                  0
                • KempRugeLawGroup

                  Numbers vs #'s For Blog Titles

                  For your blog post titles, is it "better" to use numbers or write them out? For example, 3 Things I love About People Answering My Constant Questions or Three Things I Love About People Answering My Constant Questions? I could see this being like the attorney/lawyer, ecommerce/e-commerce and therefore not a big deal. But, I also thought you should avoid using #'s in your url's. Any thoughts, Ruben

                  Algorithm Updates | | KempRugeLawGroup
                  0
                • RetailClicks

                  Should we use brand name of product in URL

                  Hi all, What is best for SEO. We sell products online. Is it good to mention the brand in the product detail page URL key if (part of) the brand is also in the home url? So our URL is: www.brandXstore.com Is it best to do: www.brandXstore.com/brandX-productA.html of just do: www.brandXstore.com/ProductA.html Thanks for quick answering 😉

                  Algorithm Updates | | RetailClicks
                  1
                • RonSparks

                  What's better .NET or a hyphenated.COM domain

                  What's better .NET or a hyphenated .COM domain I know this is simple but in selecting a domain for my current project and I only have two options. firstname-lastname.COM or 
                  firstnamelastname.NET I'm leaning to the .COM as after reading the how to choose a domain name post. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-choose-the-right-domain-name Thanks

                  Algorithm Updates | | RonSparks
                  1
                • Eladla

                  Why doesn't everyone just purchase a .org tld?

                  Hi, I am new-ish to SEO, and something just dawned on me today. I have read in many places that .org domains rank higher (even if slightly) than .coms. Then why doesn't everyone just purchase .org TLDs? For example, in my industry, most good .com domain names are taken, but .orgs are almost all free. Why not purchase a .org and capitalize on exact match search results? seomoz is .org and it's far from being a non-profit 🙂

                  Algorithm Updates | | Eladla
                  0
                • DanHill

                  How long does a news article stay on Google's 'News' section on the SERP?

                  Our site is recognised as a news source for our niche - was just wondering if anyone had any idea how long the news story stays on the front page of the SERP once Google picks it up?

                  Algorithm Updates | | DanHill
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                • Digital Marketers
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.