Google On Redirect Pull Backs & Signal Consolidation

I am not going to get into the 301 vs 302 redirect debate, covered that countless times here. But I found an interesting conversation on Twitter about the differences between 301 and 302 redirects and how they consolidate signals forward or back, also known as pull backs.

Mike Blazer asked “if a 301 redirect consolidates forward (from the source URL to the destination URL); does a 302 redirect consolidate backward (from the destination URL to the source URL)?”

John Mueller replied “The short answer is: sometimes. A 302 does say to keep the source URL, but it doesn’t mean it’ll “pull back” what was on the destination URL (old-school trick to fake PR/DA). Also, a longer-term 302 is more like a 301. And finally, canonicalization is more than just redirects.”

Patrick Stox then asked “would that “sometimes” when it does get pulled back be when an existing page with signals is 302 redirected to a new page. What happens to the signals that go to that new page?”

John Mueller replied “If you’re talking about a new destination page, you’re balancing “more signals for destination = more likely destination is canonical” and the canonicalization of the total signals on the source page. The important part is the signals don’t get lost, they’re just on destination or source.”

Super interesting conversation…

Here are those tweets:

The short answer is: sometimes. A 302 does say to keep the source URL, but it doesn’t mean it’ll “pull back” what was on the destination URL (old-school trick to fake PR/DA). Also, a longer-term 302 is more like a 301. And finally, canonicalization is more than just redirects.

— 🐄 John 🐄 (@JohnMu) January 20, 2022

If you’re talking about a new destination page, you’re balancing “more signals for destination = more likely destination is canonical” and the canonicalization of the total signals on the source page. The important part is the signals don’t get lost, they’re just on Dest or Src.

— 🐄 John 🐄 (@JohnMu) January 20, 2022

Forum discussion at Twitter.