Redirects: Temporary vs permanent

What's the proper use of a temporary redirect? How long is "temporary"?

I want to redirect a published article URL to a new temporary article, then be able to either kill the redirect after a certain time (several days or a week) or make the redirect permanent, depending on the circumstances.

Hope that makes sense.

Of course I could rewrite the original article to reflect the new circumstances while the temporary redirect was in effect, then kill the temporary redirect and go back to the updated content in the original URL as the new, permanent content, but I may need to keep the original in tact for "journalist integrity" and "evidence" purposes. Yeah, it's complicated. :)

Now you're thoroughly confused, I'm sure.

Thx.

Many thanks, Valentin. I'm making the redirects from a Joomlart extension but it is great to know about the service you mentioned.

Can you tell me the purpose of a temporary redirect (301) or why there is a need to make two types: temporary and permanent? Does Google give you bad marks for keeping a lot of 301's on your site, for instance?

Thx.

Excellent! Thanks, Valentin.