302 Redirect

[dmeyers]

Hello all,

I understand that using a 302 redirect on one domain to another is
harmful to a it's ranking. The question I have is...is it harmful to both domains or only the linking domain? Ex: If I have a domain called myDomain1.com and I create a 302 redirect to it with a domain called myDomain2.com. I know the SE's will penalize myDomain2.com's ranking, but will it also penalize myDomain1.com's ranking?

I am using a registar that only allows 302 redirects. Even if I create a 301 directory on my server and point to it, it still registers as a 302 redirect, so a 301 is not an option.

The reason I ask is because I have purchased a domain name that receives numerous hits simply due to its common name. I don't wish to change the original domain name but thought I could utilize the new domain in some manner. I don't care about establishing a ranking for the new domain, I just don't want to penalize my primary one.

Thanks for any responses.

[jonrichd]

dmyers:

The reason a 302 redirect can be harmful is that it creates a duplicate content issue: the same page is found on both domain1 and domain2. Typically, the search engines will only show one of the two pages, so if you redirect a page on mydomain2 to mydomain1 occasionally, domain1 will lose its rankings (I believe you got the relationship backwards in your post). Typically the site that is considered to be the better authority is the one that will get credit for the page.

This isn't really a penalty, it's just a normal effect of the engines trying to reduce duplicate content. Some spammers have used agressive methods to take traffic away from other sites, and that's where the major problems begin, IMHO.

You said your registrar won't allow 301 redirects. (I'm assuming you meant your hosting company, since the registrar would have nothing to do with the way links are passed.) I've never heard of that: is it possible that you are not using the correct redirect syntax? In any case, hosting is cheap, so I would find another host that doesn't have that restriction if you are really worried about the issue.

[g1smd]

You should directly point both domain names at the server where the content resides and set up a redirect inside that server so that anything that arrives there asking for the "wrong" name is redirected to the correct name. When they arrive back at the same server some milli-seconds later, but now asking for the correct name, then serve them the content they requested.

If your host does not allow 301 redirects, then find one that does right away. This is "Webserver 101" stuff, not rocket science. You just need to have Apache with Mod_Rewrite enabled, and the couple of lines of code to make it all work is simply stuffed into the .htaccess file in the root folder of the site. It really is a ten minute job to get it all working.

[dmeyers]

Sorry for the mis-use of terms.

I am using a Windows server, so as you know, the .htaccess setup doesn't apply.

I created a directory on my server with a 301 redirect and it works fine, no problem. However when I link (not using frames) the new domain to this directory through my hosting service it loses the 301 status and turns into a 302, so there appears to be something occurring on the hosting service causing this.

As you suggested, I should probably look into using another hosting service.

Thank you both for your advice.

[g1smd]

Make sure that the option for "Permanent" is selected in the options: that is what differentiates a 301 redirect from a 302 redirect.