Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Is linking to such a 302 page a waste of time?
As far as I know, Google tries to index case #1 as if the url is really the target url of the 302, and does not want to index that "temporary" url. In case #2 it gets really complicated because this situation has been the long-time source of SERP hijacking that Google has struggled with, to only incomplete success.
And so you ask is linking to a 302'd url a waste of time? That depends on the purpose of the link, I'd say PR will not pass through to the final url, but traffic certainly will.
It also depends on the purpose of the 302. Is it really a temporary situation? If it isn't, then why not link directly to the target url of the redirect? And in that case, why is it not a 301? But if the 302 is really temporary and the content will soon be served there directly, then clearly the link will be a fruitful thing when the redirect is removed.
In short, I don't know that there IS a defintive answer about the 302 case right now. There is a lot of "should" involved, but not every case seems to be handled as it "should be", to put it mildly.
Does anyone have anything more concrete to say than my babble?
