Aryeh Gregor wrote: > On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 11:36 AM, Oldak Quill <[email protected]> wrote: >> Might not 302 be better in that it indicates the redirect will always >> be there, though the target might move in the future? Where 301 >> suggests that the client "ought to automatically re-link references", >> 302 suggests "client SHOULD continue to use the Request-URI for future >> request". >> >> Although 302 indicates temporary move and 301 indicates permanent >> move, since the Main_page could be renamed, 302 might be more fitting >> anyway... > > The Main Page *could* be renamed. Wikipedia *could* also move to > www.thebestencyclopediaever.net. 301 isn't an iron-clad guarantee, > it's a hint. 302 should be used for things that will definitely or at > least plausibly change in the future, not things that hypothetically > maybe could change if people really felt like it for some reason, > because the latter describes everything on the Internet.
The actual semantic difference between 301 and 302, as Oldak notes, is that clients that can choose which URL to use in the future should prefer the redirect target for 301, whereas they should keep using the original URL for 302. (There's also some differences with cacheability by default, but explicit expiry and cache control headers override those.) Since <http://en.wikipedia.org/> is arguably a better URL for linking to the English Wikipedia main page than <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page>, I'd see no reason not to make the redirect a 302. We'd just be telling visitors that "our main page is over there, but feel free to keep using this shorter URL". -- Ilmari Karonen _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
