Is this a Correct Time to Use 302 Redirects?

[Travis-W]

Hi Mozzers!

We are going through a rebranding process, and as of this morning we have 3 domains, all with identical content.

For example (not real domain names):

www.fantastic.com
www.fantasticfireworks.com
www.fireworks.com

We are using 3 domains to ease the rebranding transition.

We currently only want people to visit 'www.fantastic.com,' and if they visit the other 2 domains we want them redirected.

Since we will be using these other domains eventually, should we use 302 redirects instead of 301s?  The other domains are new and do not have any domain authority or sites linking in, so we do not need to worry about link juice.

Does it really matter what type of redirect we use?

Thanks!

[dawnieando]

I'm with Highland on this one.  Once your new sites are up and running submit them via GWT to ensure that they get found.

301 for now.

[Highland]

Shouldn't have any negative effects. If you want to make the sites live I would create the sites and then link to them. The spiders should do the rest.

[Travis-W]

Hmm, that was my first instinct, but I don't want to hinder the new sites in any way when we use them later.

Would using a 301 redirect now have any negative effect after we delete it and want to use the domain?

[Highland]

I would still 301 the domains. 302s are a dubious use because the HTTP standard lists them as "temporary" (which means... what?).  A 301 is considered permanent. All the use cases for 302s as a SEO tool (i.e. localized subdomains) seems to have fallen by the wayside as Google now only indexes the target site, not the 302.

It's likely that Google now treats 302 like 301 for indexation purposes (a 302 is not a real page anyways). There were serious problems years ago (see 302 hijacking) when they didn't. I wouldn't take any chances, however, and I would use a 301, which is well known to work.