301 Moved Permanently
The HTTP 301 status code means a requested resource has been moved to a different URL once and for all, and from now on, clients should look for this resource in a new location (as indicated in the Location header):
HTTP/2 301 Moved Permanently
Location: https://example.com/new
POST requests
Like with 302 Found, some browsers have been incorrectly converting POST requests to GET requests upon encountering a 301 status code. In such cases, POST data is discarded during a redirect, which goes against the HTTP spec, which states that the client should repeat the request with the same method and body.
If you want to be sure that the request will be retried with the same method and body, use 308 Permanent Redirect.
| Request Method | Permanent | Temporary |
|---|---|---|
| Can change from POST to GET | 301 | 302 |
| Can’t change from POST to GET | 308 | 307 |
Search engines
Upon encountering 301, search engines will eventually remove the page from their indexes and pass most, if not all, of the domain authority (aka link juice) to the new page.
Try it yourself
Unlike browsers, most HTTP clients won’t follow redirects; you have to explicitly enable this behavior. For example, to follow redirects in curl, you will have to pass the -L, --location option:
curl -L http://httpguides.com
If your HTTP library doesn’t automatically follow redirects, you will have to extract the Location header and recursively follow it until you receive a non-3xx code.