Redirected "vanity domains" - a problem?

[europeforvisitors]

I've got a site with several "sites within the site," using the following structure:

Widgets: widgets.com

Red widgets: widgets.com/redwidgets/

Blue widgets: widgets.com/bluewidgets/

Now, I also have "vanity domains" for convenience in identifying my sections on red and blue widgets:

redwidgets.com = widgets.com/redwidgets/

bluewidgets.com = widgets.com/bluewidgets/

My domain registrar redirects the Redwidgets.com and Bluewidgets.com domains (which have many inbound links) to the appropriate subdirectories on Widgets.com. The domain registrar's site identifies these as 302 redirects, although a support person described the process as placing the entire page within a frame and using a meta refresh.

My questions:

1. Is the domain registrar's use of 302 or meta refresh redirects likely to cause problems with Google? (I.e., might Google interpret them as 302 hijacking?) I received an e-mail from a fellow member that made me think about this possibility.

2. If the redirections are risky as currently set up, what's the best solution?

One technically simple option would be to set up separate accounts for each of the "vanity domains" and use an .htaccess file with a 301 redirect to the widgets.com/subdirectory/. This seems pretty clumsy, though, and I wonder if it might not introduce problems of its own.

Any suggestions? (I've searched through past threads on redirection of vanity domains but haven't run across any that address this specific problem--plus, the threads that I've found have been pretty old.)

Thanks for any and all insights.

[claus]

>> But the problem is if people link to the bbs using the short domain instead of
>> long-domain/bbs, we won't get credit for the inbound links.

Yes that's the case. However, if your short domain redirects using a 301 status code then your target URL (the BBS) should "inherit" the links from your short domain.

Please note that the 301 status code is extremely important. You have to make sure that your domain redirects using a 301 status code, otherwise you risk all kinds of odd stuff that's mostly out of your control and sometimes difficult to recover from as well.

However, there's one trade-off: The effect will also be that the short domain will not be found in the SERPS. Only the "long-domain/bbs" will be found in the SERPS.

[europeforvisitors]

However, there's one trade-off: The effect will also be that the short domain will not be found in the SERPS. Only the "long-domain/bbs" will be found in the SERPS.

My domain registrar has been using 303 redirects of vanitydomain.com to mymaindomain.com/topic/, and Google has been displaying the mydomain.com/topic/ domains for as long as I can remember.

Also, I remember when a cruising site linked to a few of my pages with 302 redirects a year or two ago (nothing sneaky--I think the owner was just tracking outbound-link traffic). For about a month, Google displayed the linking page's URL in its SERPs, but then the correct URLs (mine) kicked in.

I'm not sure what any of this means, except possibly that Google has been wrestling with the question of how to handle redirects for quite a while.

[newbies]

Hi Claus, thanks for the reply.
>>Yes that's the case. However, if your short domain redirects using a 301 status code then your target URL (the BBS) should "inherit" the links from your short domain.

Yes, all redirects are 301. I have to check if there is any inheritance.

>>However, there's one trade-off: The effect will also be that the short domain will not be found in the SERPS. Only the "long-domain/bbs" will be found in the SERPS.

You are right. When I search google using vanity domains, Google shows my main domain on the top of the list.