Using a 302 re-direct from http://www to https://www to secure customer data

[Ubique]

My website sends Customers from a http://www.mysite.com/features page to a  https://www.mysite.com/register page which is an account sign-up form using a 302 re-direct.

Any page that collects customer data has an authenticated SSL certificate to protect any data on the site. Is this 302 the most appropriate way of doing this as the weekly crawl picks it up as being bad practise? Is there a better alternative?

[etruvian]

Hi, why does the redirect happen?  When someone clicks "register", why doesn't it just go directly to the secure page?

[Ubique]

It's the way it was set-up at the start, but I only recently discovered it. Now I'm trying to figure why it was done this way and the best way to resolve it.

[etruvian]

Ok, I still don't understand when the redirect happens.  Does the /features page always redirect, or only when someone is not logged in?

[Ubique]

Here is the link to our features page so you can see what I mean http://goo.gl/kD7T1

If you click on the 'Sign Up Now' button in the middle of the page, you move to a https:// page via a 302?

[etruvian]

Ah, ok got it, thanks.  From an SEO perspective I definitely wouldn't worry about it since the link goes to a registration form and doesn't have any SEO value.  You might even decide that its better to keep the page out of the index altogether (but again, I wouldn't spend much time on it).    The better alternative for redirects is a 301 redirect on the old URL, and updating all your internal links with the new URL.  If this was an important page I'd consider doing it, but for this page it would be last on my never-ending list of priorities.