The folks at Screaming Frog posted on Twitter a statement made by a developer telling their SEO team that they don’t need to set up 301 redirects because Google is able to figure it out automatically. Here is what they quoted “you don’t need to set-up 301 redirects anymore, as Google takes care of it automatically.”

So out came the magic elves at Google to mock the statement, which is a good thing:

Folks – you need to help Google find the right URLs when you move from URL A to URL B. It is really hard for Google to do this without some hints and the strongest hint you can give them is a 301 redirect.

Forum discussion at Twitter.