A 301 redirect is a permanent forward from one address to another. When a visitor or a search engine asks for the old address, the server answers with the new one and sends them there. Google treats the move as permanent, so the rankings and links the old page earned pass to the new page instead of being lost.
A 302 redirect says the move is temporary, so Google may keep the old address in its results. Most website platforms default to 301 for a reason, and almost every rename, merge or rebuild should use it.
An HTTP response with status 301 Moved Permanently and a Location header for the new URL. Google consolidates signals into the target and swaps the indexed URL over time. Use 308 when the request method must be preserved, otherwise 301 is fine.
Redirect to the final destination in one hop. Chains (A to B to C) and loops waste crawl budget and leak signals, and anything past a few hops is dropped by Googlebot. The target should return 200, be indexable and carry a self-referencing canonical. Redirect every old URL individually when the site moves; a blanket redirect to the homepage is treated as a soft 404.
Redirect 301 /old-page/ https://example.com/new-page/