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302 Redirects: A Guide to Search-Friendly Usage
September 12, 2007
Here are a few of the "absolutes" in the SEO field:
- Never use Flash
- Never use cloaking
- Never use 302 redirects
These are, of course, wild oversimplifications. Equating Flash or cloaking with bad SEO is like classifying Hank Aaron as a poor hitter because he batted cross-handed.
So when is a 302 redirect better than a 301 redirect? Here are a few examples. Keep in mind that in these scenarios, the 302 is not the only possibility to achieve the desired results. Plenty of CMS options likely exist that will do the same thing. It all depends on your setup. But in each of these cases, the 302 is certainly better than a 301. Let me say that one more time. Each of these scenarios likely has several non-redirect options that perform the same task. But the point of this post is that the 301 is not always the redirect you want, and sometimes it can hurt you if you buy into the "301 is the only good redirect" argument.
Example 1: New Products, Fresh Content. You run a cell phone information site, and one of your targeted phrases is [newest cell phones]. You have a URL called /newest-cell-phones.php, which is your users' go-to page for the latest in cellular technology.
For the last few days, the /newest-cell-phones.php page has redirected (via 302) to /lg-vx8350.php, which is the latest phone you've torn apart and reviewed. At the same time, you also have a static link in the LG portion of your site directly to /lg-vx8350.php, because you want to get that content crawled on its own as well. You're not particularly worried about dupe content issues, because tomorrow, you'll be done with your /nokia-2610.php page, and it will then become the target URL for the /newest-cell-phones.php redirect.
Example 2: Restaurant Content, Lazy-Susan Style. You run a popular restaurant with a large user base who check in each morning to see the day's menu. Because you buy local and fresh, you often have only a few days' notice about what you'll serve on any given day. You've done some user testing and found that your customers HATE the dreaded "giant PDF menu download" they find at most restaurant sites. Conseqently, you have a link on your home page directly to a URL called /todays-menu.htm. In addition, you have seven other pages:
- /sunday-menu.htm
- /monday-menu.htm
- /tuesday-menu.htm
- /wednesday-menu.htm
- /thursday-menu.htm
- /friday-menu.htm
- /saturday-menu.htm
On Monday, for example, /todays-menu.htm uses a 302 redirect to /monday-menu.htm. The next day, it redirects to /tuesday-menu.htm, and so on.
Would a 301 work here too? Absolutely not. You want /todays-menu.html to remain in the indexes and rank for terms like [restaurant name menu]. You do NOT want a URL like /wednesday-menu.htm to become associated with [restaurant name menu], because it's counterintuitive for such a URL to appear in SERPs (at least six-sevenths of the time!), and you have no control over what URL the engines will choose to replace /todays-menu.htm in the index, since you don't control what day they crawl it.
So what do these examples have in common? Here are some guidelines when deciding whether 302 is the way you want to go:
You could consider using a 302 when, for the following redirect:
URL A ---> URL B
- ...it is important that URL A be indexed and remain indexed.
- ...it's not critical that URL B be indexed, but its content is very helpful for users.
- ...you have several different URLs that might fit logically in the URL B spot above.
- ...you have put some resources into strong internal and directory linking for URL A.
As I said before, a 302 is not the only way to achieve this. Plenty of dev environments and independent scripts will enable you to achieve this also, but depending on your setup, a 302 might be the easiest way.
A little background on the often-misunderstood 302: If you spend any time slogging through HTTP header documentation (and who doesn't?), you've probably noticed that the 307 -- not the 302 -- is the true "temporary redirect." But older clients apparently don't always know how to handle a 307 properly, and the 302 does more or less the same thing.
Plenty of development environments use 302 redirects to direct users to the "appropriate" version of the home page when the root is called. For example, if you go to www.adidas.com, you'll be redirected (twice, actually) to the appropriate language and country version of the home page -- in my case, /us/shared/home.asp. This, in my opinion, is not the best environment for a 302 redirect. (See Bill Slawski's excellent analysis of 302s at domain roots from earlier this year.)
The downside to the whole approach I've laid out here is that it's sometimes hard to get good external links to "URL A," because by the time users click it, they've been redirected, and if they copy the URL from their browser, it's "URL B." Some good directories will allow you to submit a URL that redirects, as long as it redirects to a page on the same domain. But to get people to link to URL A, you'll need to make a conscious effort to give them the correct URL.
see all posts by Erik Dafforn
posted by Erik Dafforn at September 12, 2007 04:55 PM
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