How to resolve recurring 302 redirects?

[MrLeeB]

In my Moz site crawl there is a fluctuating number of 302 redirect pages that don't physically exist - most are through a 'compare product' option. The number of 302s varies significantly by how many pages Rogerbot has crawled - the more pages crawled, the higher the number of 302s, so I'm pretty sure it's the 'compare product' that's causing the issue.

I can't find a way to remove the compare product button so I need another way to resolve it.  I can;t canonicalise the pages as they don't exist as such. Does anyone have any ideas?

[sergeystefoglo]

Hi there!

Good question. First of all, it sounds like the 302 is necessary for the functionality of the site. If I'm understanding correctly, a user has the option to add an item on your site to a "compare" cart and if a user does that the page reloads (with the item in the "compare" cart) as a 302. Often times this is done with a parameter.

So it looks something like this?

/example-product/ > 302 > /example-product/?compare=list

If this is the case, I would try taking that parameter and letting Google know not to crawl pages that have it in. You can do this in Google Search Console. Here's a great guide from Google on parameters, exclusions, and what we can do with them.

Please let me know if I misunderstood the question. Hope that helps!

[MrLeeB]

Hi Sergey,

You're spot on with the question and to be honest I feel a bit daft for not thinking of parameters before! (Doh!) But it doesn't seem to be an issue with Google - only other bots like Moz and Screaming Frog seem to pick it up which strikes me as strange.

Thanks for your answer though - very helpful!

[sergeystefoglo]

In that case I wouldn't worry

If you want to crawl a version of your site without those parameters Screaming Frog allows you to exclude any specific parameters by going to configuration > URL rewriting.

Best of luck!