HTTP 302 — Found

What 302 actually means

A temporary redirect. The original URL is still the right one to remember — the server is just sending you elsewhere for now, typically to a login page, a maintenance notice, or a region-specific version. Historically, browsers changed POST requests into GET when following a 302, which was never what the specification said but became universal; 303 and 307 exist to make that behaviour explicit rather than accidental.

Common causes

• Redirecting an unauthenticated visitor to a login page
• A temporary maintenance or promotional page
• Geographic or language-based routing
• A URL shortener or click tracker forwarding to the destination

If you're just trying to view the page

1. Nothing — the browser follows this for you
2. If you end up in a redirect loop, clear that site's cookies; a stale session cookie is the usual cause

If it's your site

1. If the move is permanent, use 301 — a 302 leaves the old URL indexed and splits ranking signals
2. For method-preserving temporary redirects use 307; for "POST succeeded, now go look at this" use 303
3. A 302 is not cached unless you add explicit `Cache-Control` headers, which is usually what you want

Reference

Status code

302

Reason phrase

Found

Category

3xx — Redirection

Cacheable by default

No

Defined in

RFC 9110 §15.4.3