HTTP Header Check Issue

http header check

[zammo]

Hi

We have a client with the domain widgets.co.uk (which is the main site), but they also own widgeting.co.uk/widgets which goes through to the same site content. When I type in 'widgets' into Google widgets.co.uk is nowhere to be seen but widgeting.co.uk/widgets comes up in first place.

I have run an HTTP header check on widgets.co.uk and get the result;

HTTP/1.1 302 Object moved =>

Can anyone tell me if this 302 result is the reason why widgets.co.uk is not in the Google index, and if so what would be the best course of action to fix this?

Cheers

[tedster]

A 302 redirect is a temporary redirect -- it is telling Google "This content is only moved temporarily to another url." So Google will index the content under the source url and not under the target url.

Google only intends to have one url for any bit of your content in their index. If you intend the target of redirect to be indexed and not the source of the redirect, it should use a 301 [Permanent] and not a 302 [Temporary]

[g1smd]

The fast track: get the redirect changed to a 301 redirect. To keep rankings the same, redirect from the other URL TO the one that is already listed. If you can afford a dip in traffic for a few months then redirect from the folder to the domain name - that would be good for the long term, but this is risky in the short term.

Read all the threads talking about 301 redirects and duplicate content issues here at WebmasterWorld. There are, just today alone, already 8 threads actively talking about this....

[tedster]

In this case, the issue of a 302 redirect already in place comes into the picture. Sometimes changing a setup like this means a bump in the road of some duration, as the new redirect gets evaluated by Google.

I have seen 302 redirects applied in a non-standard way that were doing good things for the domain involved. For example, because of internal technical issues, having the Home Page resolve directly at www.example.com was not practical. The domain had been using a 302 redirect to the internal urls of their Home Page for several years.

Now often when someone puts their Home Page content at any url except right at www.example.com, it can cause a lot of crazy results in search engines. But in this case, the 302 redirect was keeping everything working as intended. If I had insisted on switching that to a 301, there's a good chance a "problem" that didn't show any symptoms would have turned into a very real problem with very real symptoms. We'll have this site get rid of the 302 only when they are technically ready to serve content directly at the domain root.

Dont' get me wrong -- I'm not looking at these two domains that zammo is discussing, so this is not specific advice for that case. But I am saying to look at the very real situation before following through on any "best practice".

[jdMorgan]

I hope that's not confusing...

The "best practice" depends on the situation. For a 'home page' not at the domain root, a 302 is fine, as it is desired to index the home page in a non-standard location, but retain the standard URL.

However, to solve the problem as stated in the original post, a 301 is "best practice," as long as the site can stand the possibility of a short period of non-optimal search ranking/listing in exchange for long-term correct listings.

Jim