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Question Moving Pages to New URL's - Unable to Use 301 Redirects to Tell Search Engines The Pages Have Moved got me thinking - If there is only access to change the content of a page to affect redirection we can use

  <meta http-equiv="REFRESH" content="0; url=XXXXXXX>

Of-course, this does not create a 30x status code, but on the other hand is very old (I remember using it with Netscape) and has a very low barrier as its just HTML.

How does Google treat http-equiv="REFRESH" to a new URL from a redirection/SEO POV?

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This might help:

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/301-redirects

meta refresh and its HTTP equivalent

If server side redirects aren't possible to implement on your platform, meta refresh redirects may be a viable alternative. Google differentiates between two kinds of meta refresh redirects:

  • Instant meta refresh redirect: Triggers as soon as the page is loaded in a browser. Google Search interprets instant meta refresh redirects as permanent redirects.

  • Delayed meta refresh redirect: Triggers only after an arbitrary number of seconds set by the site owner. Google Search interprets delayed meta refresh redirects as temporary redirects.

Place the meta refresh redirect either in the <head> element in the HTML or in the HTTP header with server side code.

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