302 began life in HTTP/1.0 as `Found` (originally `Moved Temporarily`). Its enduring quirk is that most clients rewrite the HTTP method from `POST` to `GET` when following a 302, contradicting the strict specification — that divergence is why RFC later specified 303 See Other (always-GET) and 307 Temporary Redirect (preserve-method) as explicit replacements. For a browser following a simple GET link, 302 and 307 are indistinguishable in behavior. 302 is the default `res.redirect()` status in many web frameworks, which is why it remains the most common redirect status on the web. Search engines treat 302 as `do not move ranking signals` — the source URL stays in the index and the target gets the traffic for now. URL shorteners typically use 302 (or 307) so the marketing team can repoint a link weeks after launch without crawler confusion. If you permanently moved a page and mistakenly kept a 302, search engines will keep indexing the old URL and the new one will never accumulate the equity it should.