PHP 301 Permanent and 302 Temporary Redirect | PHP Tutorial For Beginners

Sometimes you need to redirect a user to a different page — for example, after a successful login, or when a page has moved. PHP's built-in header() function handles both 301 permanent and 302 temporary redirects.

301 Permanent Redirect

A 301 redirect tells search engines and browsers that a page has moved permanently to a new URL. Search engines transfer link equity to the new URL.

<?php
header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
header("Location: http://www.example.com/new-page");
exit();
?>

302 Temporary Redirect

A 302 redirect tells browsers to go to a different URL temporarily. Search engines keep the original URL indexed and do not transfer link equity.

<?php
header("Location: http://www.example.com/temporary-page");
exit();
?>

Note: Omitting the HTTP/1.1 301 header results in a 302 temporary redirect by default. Use 301 redirects wherever possible — they are more search-engine friendly and preserve your page's ranking signals.

Important Rules

• header() must be called before any HTML or whitespace is sent to the browser.
• Always follow a header("Location: ...") call with exit() to stop script execution immediately.

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