Directories that use 302 redirects

Shall I submit?

[Gonzalez]

I spent a few days finding reasonably good PR directories that will list sites for free.

The problem is that most of them will link to your site through reditects instead of straight html links. I used the Server Header Checker tool and the redirect allways reports a 302.

I am ready to start submiting, but due to the 302 redirect problem on Google reported on several posts lattely, I'm affraid getting a listing there may cause me more damages than beneficts.

Please share your opinion.

[yves1]

The problem google is having with 302 redirects and meta refresh is not fixed yet. You should not submit your URL to these directories, or their redirects might replace your URL in the google index.

[nolen1]

Don't do it! I'm am having this problem with three of my sites. One site has been replaced in the serps and two aren't even in the first 1000 results. These were good ranking sites but now duplicates show up when I use the allinurl command. The duplicates have the same title and description with a different url. When they use a 302 redirect Google thinks that your page has temporarely moved to their site.

[directrix]

Please could you explain how to use the Server Header Checker tool to determine whether a directory is using 302 redirects.

[Gonzalez]

First of all, thanks everybody for the advice.
For directrix (and anyone who needs):
Go to:

[searchengineworld.com...]

And paste your url on the box :)

[directrix]

Thanks, Gonzales.

I may be being a bit dumb, but which URL do you paste in the box? The URL of the directory page? Of your own site?

Thanks again.

[Gonzalez]

Assume the following;

Your site is [some-site.com...]
The directory is [some-directory.com...]
Your site is listed as [some-directory.com?redirect=12345...] (view source if needed)

Paste [some-directory.com?redirect=12345...] and hit "Check it"

If you get a 302 (temporary or found) you can have an issue.
If you get a 301 (permanent) everything is ok (I think).
If you paste your URL you must have a 200

[Tigrou]

Earlier I was going to post something saying "don't worry about" it, but I keep forgetting how badly hit some people have been with the 302 issue.

but non-302 Redirects aren't Evil
I know that most SEOs disregard links if they redirect but consider that even if they don't give you a Pr/anchor text benefit (arguable), then the ABSENSE of them could be a flag for google.

Google has an array of data to flag overly SEO'd sites. You'd think that one pretty obvious one is a link portfolio that only has static links with anchor text.

Maybe it is paranoid, but I thought is a pretty important addition to link portfolio.

Just a thought,
CF

[directrix]

Gonzales, thanks again.

I get a 302 Found for my site's listing in the Yahoo! directory. I've had that listing for almost two years now, and it's not caused a problem, but this is worth bearing in mind for future directory submissions.

[walkman]

yeah submit it. Google says that there's almost nothing no harm that a competitor or a link to you can do </sarcasm off>

[HughMungus]

This brings up a related issue on my site. If I'm using PHP's header/location like to redirect people based on links they click on on my site (so I can track them) like this, am I generating such a 302 message to Google somehow?

<?php
header("Location: [example.com...] /* Redirect browser */
?>

[encyclo]

HughMungus, that's an evil 302. ;) Your code should be:

<?php
[b]header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");[/b]
header("Location: http://www.example.com/"); /* Redirect browser */
header("Connection: close");
?> 

The "Connection: close" is needed for some versions of IE, I think.

[HughMungus]

Well, the way my site is setup is that I have a bunch of links to different things and I have a file named "go.php" that both adds an entry to the database that records the click and redirects to the link the person clicked on (in other words, I'm not trying to be sneaky, just using the redirect function because it suits my purpose). Wouldn't indicating a permanent redirect be wrong/confusing also?

[encyclo]

It's a permanent redirect because the site/content the person is looking for will never be at the clickthru URL you are providing - it is, in permanence, at the target URL. You need to specify that with a 301, and not a 302.

[HughMungus]

Ah. OK. This might explain my unnaturally high rankings for some keywords... Thanks!

[encyclo]

This might explain my unnaturally high rankings for some keywords

I think that most of the existing 302 redirects in directories and such are unintentional in this way, and not a malicious attempt to hijack rankings. However, the effect can be the same.

The big question is, HughMungus, are you going to change your code now you're aware of the situation? ;)

[HughMungus]

I don't know. I was wondering for the past few weeks why some of my pages were ranking so highly when those pages have almost no inbound links and the site itself is only a few months old. It seems to be both an ethical debate and a SEO debate. Regarding the former, it's no different than what some people here do that I don't like. Regarding the latter, if Google ever fixes it I'd be affected but if there's no *penalty* for doing it after it's fixed, I wouldn't be affected that much...

[walkman]

"I think that most of the existing 302 redirects in directories and such are unintentional in this way, and not a malicious attempt to hijack rankings. However, the effect can be the same. "

I agree, at least until until now that word has spread. Face it, many people would sell their mom for money so they will not lose any sleep when adding your site to ther "directory". What's amazing is the lack of response from Google. It is their thing and only they can really stop this. Microsoft would've been (rightfully) creamed on this.

[surfgatinho]

Whatever the effect on the actual site owner it seems to be working great for the directories using the 302 redirects.
There is one in particular that just keeps popping up in the SERPS whatever money related terms I type. I'm still trying to understand how this whole thing works.
I guess it's Google gives the redirecting site credit for the page and regards the original as a dupe?

[HughMungus]

surf, I wanted to get the backstory on this myself and I found this original thread:

[webmasterworld.com...]

[Andy Atkins Kruger]

Why don't you just link to a spare domain that's 301ed to your site?

[pardo]

We use encrypted pages that redirect (302)to the merchants landingspage to prevent our affiliate-coded outbound links to be 'stolen/hacked' easily.

Is this a good way to link out to the merchants websites?

How do the big shopping search engines cope with this 'outbound linking' issue, they are all using affiliate urls...?