302 Redirects and Search Engine Optimization

Question

We're trying to improve our search engine ranking (in Google basically). One of the points raised that could be a problem is the 302 redirect performed when a user hits the site from a search engine (redirecting to the welcome page of the site).

It has been suggested that this is detrimental to our ranking as it’s some sort of redirect - which search engines do not like - I counter that as it’s the same domain this should not prove a problem.

Does anyone have any concrete evidence either way?

Answer 1

As an SEO, I can tell you that:

1. over the shortterm (under 7-9 months) ... a 302 redirect will hurt your ranking a little.
2. longterm ... the 302 will be treated as a 301.
3. even 301 redirects don't pass all the link juice the receive (about 80%).

For a solution ... I've implemented this on both an SP2007 and SP2010 platform. Works a charm, however, sometimes (don't know why) SharePoint Designer complains to the point where you need a seperate webapp for management of the site.

Answer 2

Have you measured your results? Tomresing.com is not tweaked, but a search for a phrase on my main page turns up in Google. This is a SharePoint 2010 Foundation site, but I haven't seen any pages excluded on SharePoint 2007 sites I've measured either.

The most important strategy for improving your ranking is to publish timely, relevant content and participate in the community. Jakob Nielsen's Writing for the Web dives deep into natural strategies for encouraging readership of your site.

SharePoint has specific implementation differences from a standard web site. I write about rewriting versus redirecting and some of my experiments with Search Engine Results on my old blog.