Is a 302 redirect considered spam?

Is a 302 redirect created by mod_rewrite in apache considered spam?

[sichen1234]

Hello everybody. We have a redirect from mod_rewrite which changes URLs like:

[mysite.com...]

to

[mysite.com...]

In apache access_log we get result codes "302 352" for the first request and "200 22897" for the second one. The url shown in the browser also changes.

I know that <META HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH"...> is considered spam by some search engines (like Inktomi?) Would this type of redirect (returning a 302 and changing the URL) also be considered spam by any major search engine?

Thanks!

Si Chen

[sherwoodseo]

Ideally, if you're using the RewriteRule command, you'll want to use a [P] parameter instead of the [R] parameter.

This triggers the redirect internally, so that no URL changed is observed in the browser [or by the search engine].

By the way, the [P] stands for mod_proxy, which also needs to be installed.

[Airportibo]

Independently from the way you've been (ab-)using the 302 redirect...
Using a 301 or 302 for moving webpages to another location is not considered spam. Actually it is being encouraged by Google. But you want to make sure if you use the 301 (permanant) or 302 (temporary), since it has an impact on the page rank calculation/transition.
Best
Airportibo

[jdMorgan]

Si Chen,

An internal rewrite, rather than an external 301 or 302 redirect, is what you need. This simply tells the server to get the content from a different path internal to the server, and is invisible to clients. To demonstrate the differences, here are a 302 redirect and an internal rewrite:

302 External redirect:

RewriteRule ^/category/([^.]+)\.htm$ http://www.mysite.com/webstore/control/category/~category_id=$1 [R,L]

Internal (silent) rewrite:

RewriteRule ^/category/([^.]+)\.htm$ /webstore/control/category/~category_id=$1 [L]

The internal rewrite will not update the browser address bar, because it does not require any client action.

It should not be necessary to use the proxy flag [P] unless the request needs to be passed to another server.

Jim