Does a 302 redirect pass penalties?

[MattBarker]

I'm having problems finding a definitive answer to this question, there is a lot of rumour and gossip out there but nothing I can rely on.

I'm working with a site that received an unnatural links notice followed by a massive drop in search traffic. Looking at the link profile it's pretty much jacked beyond repair and I have recommended that we move over to a fresh domain.

However, it's an established brand with many more sources of traffic than organic search. There's no way we can burn all their repeat visits, loyal customers, brand recognition that they've built up over the years so I want to redirect from the old domain to the new.  This is not to try and make any SEO gain from the previous site, frankly we don't give a crap about that. We just want to maintain the brand.

A 302 is a temporary redirect, this will be a permanent move BUT a 301 will pass on the penalty.  So can we safely use a 302 redirect in this situation or is there a better alternative (meta refresh?)

Thanks for your help!

MB.

[MattBarker]

Cheers Chris. Something like that would be a good fallback plan, but in our case the referral and direct traffic is way more important than organic search.

In the absence of any better solution and because we can't ditch the brand and all the non-SEO traffic we've decided to go down the cleanup route.  Even if it doesn't work it's better than sacrificing the referral and direct traffic the brand gets.  Sucks that there seems to be no better solution to this problem, it seems like a common issue.

[SEOdub]

I assume you have already considered this but a more sure way to keep the continuity (most) of traffic without passing the penalty would be to set individual landing pages on the old domain (for each important URL) with a notice about the new site and a large no follow link to forward to tcorrelating page on the new domain. You would need to create a lot of pages but it is a solution, albeit one with a poor user experience so it's probably a last resort (better than a 404).

I have a client caught in an algorithmic penalty and am searching these same sources for answers.  It seems that sometimes a 301 can avert the penalty but ussually does not.  Were gonna try it, if it doesn't work we might be exactly where your client is now looking at a new clean domain and 302's (maybe).

Good Luck!

[MattBarker]

I would still love to know if anyone has any more concrete information on this question.  At the moment it seems like people like my client find themselves in an intractable problem:

• Recovering is highly unlikely, so it's often easier to save the brand and move to a new domain

• But doing so means you have to relinquish all your previous brand recognition and loyalty (NOT your old site's SEO) because using a 301 OR a 302 redirect will pass along the penalty

So is there no way of redirecting a domain that will not pass any SEO value and/or the penalty?  If you don't care about the old site's SEO status or links and you just want to start anew, is it also impossible to retain the branded traffic & repeat visitors from the old site?

[KeriMorgret]

Can you share some of the information that led you to that conclusion?

[BlueprintMarketing]

Hi Matthew,

I had assumed that you were trying to wipe the slate clean. However because you were talking about redirecting links from any source at all. I assume that you would be trying to 302 redirect a link for me what was once bad source to a now clean slate or new source. My history of helping people with this and knowledge personally on the subject tells me do not do it I would strongly advise against doing it. However there is an SCO company you may feel more comfortable in speaking with that will give you the same definite answer.

I would try the guys atDistilled, or Virantehttp://www.virante.org/Virante is a Company that is endorsed by Moz & The reason I'm speaking about them is they make a tool called http://www.removeem.com/They deal quite a bit with penalties and link removal. So not that you are looking to remove links however they would give you a very definite yes or no and from what I've experienced myself it is not really wiping the slate clean and less you truly are wiping the slate clean and that means having webmasters that have valid links not the ones that got you in trouble obviously asked for them to change the link so that it is still link to you if they'll actually do it. There's no way you're going to retain  your ranking from this you're going to have to start from scratch and do some RCS.Sorry if my answer was not clear enough. Respectfully, Thomas

[MattBarker]

Thanks Greg,

I had seen that previous discussion, it's pretty much the most useful content I could find on the subject. Except it's well over 12 months old, and it pretty clearly establishes that 301 redirects do pass penalties immediately.

Given we're moving the site to escape a penalty it would be crazy to use a 301 redirect when we know that is going to pass on the penalty.

My question is whether a 302 redirect will pass a penalty. In theory it shouldn't because it doesn't pass PageRank or other SEO metrics, so would it pass a penalty?

It's nuts that there's no more definitive information on something that should be so easy to test and answer.  Is there no advice from Moz or any of the other authorities on this?

[AndreVanKets]

Hi Mathew,

There was an interesting discussion on this subject on another question thread here

There was no definite yes or no to your question, some people experienced the penalty being passed over and others didn't. In theory, if 301's passed penalty, webmasters could 301 all their "dead" sites to competitors and this would be a mission for Google to control should the 301 pass over the penalty.

Based on Rands comments in that thread, he believes 301's dont pass on any penalties and it may be due to other factors that contribute to the low rankings on the new sites since implementing the 301.

My suggestion would be to go ahead and do the permanent redirect. As you say, you cant afford loosing return customers. Let us know how it goes.

Greg

[MattBarker]

Thanks for taking the time to share your opinion Thomas, but respectfully it looks like you misinterpreted my question. I'm very clear that we're not trying to do this to benefit from any old spam links - we're doing this to wipe the slate clean on all that.  But this is a brand we're talking about - people reach the site from all sorts of sources, referrals & reviews, WoM, repeat/loyal visitors, etc.

We don't give a damn about the negligible SEO value of the old site but we care very much about not losing our non-organic search visitors as they're all that's sustaining the business right now.

So if it's true that both 301 and 302 redirects pass on a penalty that means that Google is screwing with us even when we're trying to wipe the slate clean.  That's just insane even by their standards - now they're trying to penalise people beyond the realm of organic search!

But does anyone have any incontrovertible proof that this is the case?  Have Moz or any other authorities done any experiments on this?

[BlueprintMarketing]

hi,

I can tell you with absolute certainty if you have set up 302's out of what was your old website and Google checks that which they will because you said there Penalizing you.

"I'm working with a site that received an unnatural links notice followed by a massive drop in search traffic. Looking at the link profile it's pretty much jacked beyond repair and I have recommended that we move over to a fresh domain."

I would unfortunately have to recommend strongly that you if moving to note new domain literally begin again. If of course you have relevant links from high quality sources yes those can be 301 redirected.

If you think that Google will let you simply 302 bad links to your new site you are going to be in for a very tough time with Google.

It's extremely important to follow the rules and not to try to manipulate them in any way shape or form if they feel that you are trying to benefit from what they think is spam to put it nicely they will come down on you much harder. I know it's not the answer you want to hear. However,I know for a fact you should not do that and if you do you will simply be penalized again.

Recommend using open web explore along with majestic SEO to find the relevant back links and see if there's a way to salvage some of them. Through webmasters changing the quality links. Most likely white hat webmasters are likely to respond and be more friendly than black hat webmasters. Though I know I'm not telling you anything new everyone's unique.

I wish you the best on this sincerely,

Thomas