302 into 301 link issue

[JS_Harris]

This issue is specific to pinterest and to a new(ish) site of mine.

I followed the advice of several respected sites and applied some code on my site so that when someone pinned an image a link to my page would be appended to the description on Pinterest. This is similar to adding a link to your own site when you pin your own content(Pinterest handles both the same way).

The problem: These are not links to your site! If you watch the HTTP headers you will see that clicking on your link, or ANY link to your site, on Pinterest leads to an intermediary page on pinterest which then 302's out to your site. As you know a 302 tells search engines that the content of the Pinterest page is temporarily moved to your site, ie: it belongs to Pinterest.

The effect: Any post that gets pinned on a new site leads to the Pinterest page being chosen over the actual article on my site. Granted this is a newer site, it isn't that simple on an older site, but the effect is the same... it detracts from your site and bolsters Pinterest a little.

My question: What happens if on my site I 301 redirect the content from the original url to another url on my site? I am going to redirect pages ending with .html to the non .html version but want to know if I should remove all links from Pinterest first in order to clean up that problem before compounding it. Your thoughts ?

[goodroi]

Are you asking what will happen when pinterest points a 302 to your site and then you 301 redirect that page to another page on your site? I haven't checked this for a while but last time I did Google had no problem following a 302 > 301 > 200 chain. I have seen some problems when you have very long chains. Also with every redirect there is likely a small amount of link juice being evaporated so ideally you want to minimize/avoid redirect chains.

[JS_Harris]

Essentially yes, I have Pinterest pins linked to my site that are showing up in webmaster tools but use an older url structure and so I redirect them. ie: .html to non-html ending.

302 from Pinterest followed by a 301 to the final page on my site. Does the 301(permanent) stick when it has a 302(temporary) pointed to it or does Google consider this Pinterest's content still?

[JS_Harris]

I have my answer. 100% of links coming from Pinterest are nofollow and use a 302 redirect page. GWT does NOT count those links as valid if you further 301 redirect the target landing page on your site. All Pinterest links are falling out of my GWT report as I write this. GWT does however count direct links from other sites if you 301 redirect the landing page so the dropped links are Pinterest specific, it seems no other links were impacted but none of those linked through a 302 redirect.

Do you think the nofollow attribute from Pinterest plays a role in the links being dropped or is it all 302 into 301 that is the problem? Do you think Google filters redirected links like this because spammers typically try to redirect users from social networks?

Personally I think it's all rather silly, they seem quite willing to take content but the method in which they link to sources is... sketchy, according to GWT.