Is a 302 redirect to a random URL from the homepage an SEO problem?

Is a 302 redirect to a random URL from the homepage an SEO problem? - 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 Is a 302 redirect to a random URL from the homepage an SEO problem? error on your web browser. Problem :


I originally posted this on Stackoverflow, but I believe here is a better place to ask.



My web application is very similar to notepad.cc which redirects to a randomly generated URL upon access, e.g. http://myapp.com/roTr94h4Gd. (Please note that notepad.cc is not my site.)



Probably because of this redirect feature, when I do "fetch as Google" or "fetch as Bingbot", I get a 302 and no html content. Not even a <html></html> tag.



HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily
Server: nginx/1.4.1
Date: Tue, 01 Oct 2013 04:37:37 GMT
Content-Type: text/html
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Connection: keep-alive
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.4.17-1~dotdeb.1
Set-Cookie: PHPSESSID=vp99q5e5t5810e3bnnnvi6sfo2; expires=Thu, 03-Oct-2013 04:37:37 GMT; path=/
Expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT
Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0
Pragma: no-cache
Location: /roTr94h4Gd


How should I avoid 302 in this case? I suppose I could modify my site to prevent the redirect, but it is a necessary feature of my web app to generate a random URL on each access.



I added <meta name="fragment" content="!"> tag into my index page and set it to return a static snapshot of my page when the flag is set. But this still returns a 302.



I also added a header to return 200 before redirecting, but this had no effect, either.



Could someone tell me a good suggestion to solve this problem?


Solution :

I would recommend creating a home page that describes what your site is and how to use it. Users would have to click a button like "new document" to create a text editor. This is how a similar site that I use works: http://collabedit.com/



The SEO advantages are:




  • Search engine bots don't get 302 redirects

  • There is content on your home page that lets you specify and rank for your keywords



The user advantages are:




  • Users get an overview of what your site does

  • It makes clear to users that the document was created



But with the disadvantage:




  • Users have to use an extra click to start a document


We hope that this article has helped you resolve the seo, redirects, 302-redirect error in your web browsers. Enjoy browsing the internet uninterrupted!

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