Immediate effects of a 301 redirect and why 302 is not advisable?

[alfred clarifies]

Hi,

One of my client's website has a 302 redirect from http://example.com to http://www.example.com. He is indexed in Google as http://example.com whereas is indexed in yahoo and Msn as http://www.example.com.

The PR of the site with and without www is the same.

Is a 301 redirect advisable in this case (i.e a permanent redirect from http://example.com to http://www.example.com?
What immediate effects will a 301 redirect have on my PR?
And last of all what penalties i might face if i do not go for a 301 redirect and keep it as 302 only?

Pls Help
Thanking you
Alfred

[edited by: tedster at 3:21 pm (utc) on May 11, 2006]
[edit reason] use example.com and de-link [/edit]

[alfred clarifies]

Hi
I had posted the above message few days back.

Can anybody help me out!

Thanks
Alfred

[g1smd]

PR is unlikely to be badly affected, as you say that both are already the same.

It will likely take Google a few months to sort things out, in listing the www pages and dropping the non-www pages, so I would start sooner rather than later.

[Sweet Cognac]

Seems to me that if you leave it as a 302, goog will always have it listed as http://example.com, because a 302 is simply saying, "Yes this page exists, but it has been moved temporarily, and it will be back shortly, in the meantime...use this www page."

A 301 means, "This page has moved and will never come back!"

So with a 302 goog will keep coming back looking for it, and with a 301 goog will follow it to the www URL and drop the nonwww.

It's a shame really, I saw this www - nonwww stuff appear in Nov 2004, and has yet to be straightened out.

Yep, the sooner you fix it the better.