diff --git a/actionpack/CHANGELOG b/actionpack/CHANGELOG
index 4c5365f032..8793797a94 100644
--- a/actionpack/CHANGELOG
+++ b/actionpack/CHANGELOG
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 *SVN*
 
+* Added second boolean parameter to Base.redirect_to_url and Response#redirect to control whether the redirect is permanent or not (301 vs 302) #375 [Hodel]
+
 * Fixed that @request.remote_ip didn't work in the test environment #369 [Bruno Mattarollo]
 
 * Added :host and :protocol options to url_for and friends to redirect to another host and protocol than the current.
diff --git a/actionpack/lib/action_controller/base.rb b/actionpack/lib/action_controller/base.rb
index 82daf608c6..6d9278266d 100755
--- a/actionpack/lib/action_controller/base.rb
+++ b/actionpack/lib/action_controller/base.rb
@@ -529,10 +529,11 @@ module ActionController #:nodoc:
       end
 
       # Redirects the browser to the specified <tt>url</tt>. Used to redirect outside of the current application. Example:
-      # <tt>redirect_to_url "http://www.rubyonrails.org"</tt>.
-      def redirect_to_url(url) #:doc:
+      # <tt>redirect_to_url "http://www.rubyonrails.org"</tt>. If the resource has moved permanently, it's possible to pass true as the
+      # second parameter and the browser will get "301 Moved Permanently" instead of "302 Found".
+      def redirect_to_url(url, permanently = false) #:doc:
         logger.info("Redirected to #{url}") unless logger.nil?
-        @response.redirect(url)
+        @response.redirect(url, permanently)
         @performed_redirect = true
       end
 
diff --git a/actionpack/lib/action_controller/response.rb b/actionpack/lib/action_controller/response.rb
index 836dd5ffef..a574fbca75 100755
--- a/actionpack/lib/action_controller/response.rb
+++ b/actionpack/lib/action_controller/response.rb
@@ -7,8 +7,8 @@ module ActionController
       @body, @headers, @session, @assigns = "", DEFAULT_HEADERS.merge("cookie" => []), [], []
     end
 
-    def redirect(to_url)
-      @headers["Status"]   = "302 Moved"
+    def redirect(to_url, permanently = false)
+      @headers["Status"]   = permanently ? "301 Moved Permanently" : "302 Found"
       @headers["location"] = to_url
     end
   end