"302 found" for index page bad for SEO?

"302 found" for index page bad for SEO? - If a page has internal and external outgoing links to redirecting URLs, it’s returning 3xx (301, 302, etc.) HTTP status codes standing for redirection. This issue means that the page does not exist on a permanent or temporary basis. It appears on most of the popular web browsers, usually caused by a misconfigured website. However, there are some steps you can take to ensure the issue isn’t on your side. You can find more details about redirecting URLs by reading the Google Search Central overview. In this article, we’ll go over how you can fix the "302 found" for index page bad for SEO? error on your web browser. Problem :

I'm having trouble finding a clear answer on this. I'm optimizing someone else's website, and a tool pointed out that the index page returns a "302 found" (it redirects to a long URL with cookie info).

Is this bad for the index page SEO to have a 302 redirect?

Solution :

Yes, it is bad for SEO when the index page has a 302 redirect.

Matt Cutts discusses this scenario in an old blog post from 2006:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-discussing-302-redirects/

for on-domain 302 redirects (that is,
a redirect in which both the source
page and the destination page are both
on the same domain), search engines
will usually pick the shorter url.

It's better for SEO when the search engines don't have to make those choices.

Incredibly, his off-domain redirect example for sfgiants.com still has the same sub-optimal behaviour today.

It also sounds bad that cookie info is in the URL itself. It would indicate that every URL is different. Your making it very hard for a Search Engine to find the content and associate it with a valid URL for indexing.

A secondary issue is every visitor will have a different URL. If they decide to link to you or use social media then every user will be linking to a different page and therefore non of the pages will become popular.

We hope that this article has helped you resolve the redirects, seo, error in your web browsers. Enjoy browsing the internet uninterrupted!