1462479 - Use non-permanent 302 redirects for zone URL roots

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(developer.mozilla.org Graveyard :: General, enhancement, P1)

Description

[John Whitlock [:jwhitlock]]

What feature should be changed? Please provide the URL of the feature if possible.
==================================================================================
These are zones with URL roots:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons

They are at non-standard URLs for wiki docs, but they have standard paths:

http://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-Ons

If you access these pages at the "standard" URL, then a 301 (permanent) redirect sends you to the "zoned" URL. These should be 302 (found) redirects.

What problems would this solve?
===============================
We plan to retire the zoned URLs. 302 redirects will signal to browsers and search engines that a change should be expected.

Who would use this?
===================
Browsers and search engines

What would users see?
=====================
Both redirects load the alternate URL, but a permanent redirect is cached by many browsers, which won't request the original URL until a browser restart. A 302 redirect should be checked with the server each time.

What would users do? What would happen as a result?
===================================================
When zoned URLs are retired, visitors and search engines are more likely to see the change, and to see it quicker.

Is there anything else we should know?
======================================

Comment 1

[[github robot]]

Commits pushed to master at https://github.com/mozilla/kuma

https://github.com/mozilla/kuma/commit/6b6e92edb077898f9f2765e85c3e12c504d26d50
bug 1462479: Use non-permanent redirects for zones

As a first step to retiring zoned URLs, use a 302 Found redirect rather
than a 301 Permanently Moved redirect, so that we can prepare browsers
and search engines for the change.

https://github.com/mozilla/kuma/commit/b1134a1ec841f990924f737b95ef9f4ed8aae9e2
Merge pull request #4792 from jwhitlock/zone-url-redirects-1462479

bug 1462479: Use non-permanent redirects for zones

Comment 2

[John Whitlock [:jwhitlock]]

This has been deployed to staging and production, and 302 redirects are now used.