John Mueller explained on ‘Ask Google Webmaster’ about How Google handles 307/HSTS redirects.

Mueller was questioned:

How does Googlebot interact with HSTS/307s?

HSTS redirect is used for forcing the browsers to visit HTTPS version, HSTS/307 ensure that the browser lands on HTTPS URL when the link is clicked. It is useful when someone has links to HTTP instead of HTTPS.

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Mueller Says:

In short, [Googlebot] doesn’t interact with them. 307 redirects are generally not real redirects. So what does that mean?

Well, when you make a site HTTPS you can optionally use HSTS. HSTS tells users to only get the HTTPS version of a page.

So, when a user enters a URL or clicks on a link that would otherwise go to HTTP, the browser remembers the HSTS and goes directly to the HTTPS version.

If the site owner is using HSTS along with the URL Inspection tool, they can see 307 redirects in a place, however, Mueller said that HSTS behaves like a redirect but actually it is not as only browsers can see 307. It has no meaning to Googlebot. When Googlebot crawls an HTTP link with HSTS, it will not be redirected automatically to HTTPS.

Mueller Responded:

To make it clear what’s happening – it acts like it was a redirect. Chrome calls this a 307 redirect. So, if you use Chrome, and you see a 307 result code with a tool, it’s not really there.

When it comes to Googlebot, we try to crawl URLs with a fresh slate. So we wouldn’t keep the HSTS list, and rather just directly access the HTTP URL directly.

If that URL redirects, which is usually the case with an HTTP and HTTPS site, we would follow that. So, in short, Googlebot doesn’t see the 307 that you’d see in the browser. And that’s fine.

https://youtu.be/zb5ZVfS9Lyo

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