I literally have several blog posts here that has Google saying not to use the meta refresh redirect type. That you should use a 301 or 302 redirect instead and not the meta refresh version.
But does it work? Does using a meta refresh version of the redirect work? Well, you can test it or go by what John Mueller of Google said on Twitter this morning, where he said it does work.
"A meta refresh type redirect should just work," John said. Once Google processes the meta refresh redirect, they do treat it like any other redirect. John added "we don't recommend it for 2 reasons: UX (it keeps the page in browser history, afaik) & processing time (we need to parse the page to see it)."
Here are some tweets around this conversation from this morning:
A meta refresh type redirect should just work. We don't recommend it for 2 reasons: UX (it keeps the page in browser history, afaik) & processing time (we need to parse the page to see it). Once processed, it's just like a redirect.
— John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) March 2, 2018
We don't have any guidelines on the delay number, but if you want it treated like a redirect, it makes sense to have it act like a redirect (and keep the delay minimal). The same goes for JS-based redirects.
— John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) March 2, 2018
301 or 302 is essentially just a question of which URL is canonical, that can go either way here, so make sure your other canonicalization methods reflect the way you want it to go.
— John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) March 2, 2018
Forum discussion at Twitter.
