<story><title>301 redirects: a dangerous one way street (2012)</title><url>http://jacquesmattheij.com/301-redirects-a-dangerous-one-way-street</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>_Codemonkeyism</author><text>The problem with 301 without cache headers is that some browsers cache this forever due to some interpretation what &amp;#x27;permanent&amp;#x27; means.&lt;p&gt;You often can&amp;#x27;t use 302 because all your external links no longer work SEO magic for you with a 302. Google only transfers link juice with 301 [1].&lt;p&gt;If you make a mistake and misconfigure your server, you&amp;#x27;re toast.&lt;p&gt;If a disgruntled employee 301 redirects your domain, you&amp;#x27;re toast.&lt;p&gt;If a service provider misconfigures your domain, you&amp;#x27;re toast.&lt;p&gt;If a hacker (from a competitor) 301 redirects your domain, you&amp;#x27;re toast.&lt;p&gt;If you buy a domain that had a 301 on it, it&amp;#x27;s worthless.&lt;p&gt;If you buy a domain that had 301s on it that point to phishing sites, you&amp;#x27;re in trouble.&lt;p&gt;I always add cache headers to 301 redirects I use to at least prevent me from shooting myself with an arrow in my knee.&lt;p&gt;UPDATE:
[1] Google seems to have changed this recently. It also no longer considers http&amp;#x2F;https different pages as it did in the past with the same content &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.searchenginejournal.com&amp;#x2F;google-confirms-no-loss-in-link-authority-on-https-implementation&amp;#x2F;147933&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.searchenginejournal.com&amp;#x2F;google-confirms-no-loss-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zrm</author><text>Not only that, anybody with a WiFi Pineapple or any other MITM could 301 redirect anything you visit without HTTPS to their spam site.&lt;p&gt;It seems like browsers interpreting permanent as &lt;i&gt;forever&lt;/i&gt; is some kind of a bug. Even if that&amp;#x27;s literally what it says, that&amp;#x27;s not what anybody wants. What great evil is being prevented by not having it expire and be refreshed after 45 days?</text></comment>
<story><title>301 redirects: a dangerous one way street (2012)</title><url>http://jacquesmattheij.com/301-redirects-a-dangerous-one-way-street</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>_Codemonkeyism</author><text>The problem with 301 without cache headers is that some browsers cache this forever due to some interpretation what &amp;#x27;permanent&amp;#x27; means.&lt;p&gt;You often can&amp;#x27;t use 302 because all your external links no longer work SEO magic for you with a 302. Google only transfers link juice with 301 [1].&lt;p&gt;If you make a mistake and misconfigure your server, you&amp;#x27;re toast.&lt;p&gt;If a disgruntled employee 301 redirects your domain, you&amp;#x27;re toast.&lt;p&gt;If a service provider misconfigures your domain, you&amp;#x27;re toast.&lt;p&gt;If a hacker (from a competitor) 301 redirects your domain, you&amp;#x27;re toast.&lt;p&gt;If you buy a domain that had a 301 on it, it&amp;#x27;s worthless.&lt;p&gt;If you buy a domain that had 301s on it that point to phishing sites, you&amp;#x27;re in trouble.&lt;p&gt;I always add cache headers to 301 redirects I use to at least prevent me from shooting myself with an arrow in my knee.&lt;p&gt;UPDATE:
[1] Google seems to have changed this recently. It also no longer considers http&amp;#x2F;https different pages as it did in the past with the same content &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.searchenginejournal.com&amp;#x2F;google-confirms-no-loss-in-link-authority-on-https-implementation&amp;#x2F;147933&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.searchenginejournal.com&amp;#x2F;google-confirms-no-loss-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>maaaats</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;If a hacker (from a competitor) 301 redirects your domain, you&amp;#x27;re toast.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Reminds me of the guy that &amp;quot;got hold&amp;quot; of Google&amp;#x27;s domain for a few minutes. What if something similar happened and someone were able to make this redirect? Millions would be affected.</text></comment>