My nofollow link is showing as a 302\. Is this OK?

[Buhrly]

My nofollow link is showing as a 302. Is this OK? Not looking to pass any juice along but don't want to be penalized either.

Thanks Buhrly

[AlanBleiweiss]

Do you mean a link you have on your site pointing to someone else's site?  If so, that's their issue and should not negatively affect your site or rankings.

[Theo-NL]

Not necessarily entirely 'their issue', because if Jeremy is linking with a 302 redirect without wanting to do so, this issue might occur on more places across his website.

To expand on the question by Alan: is this (1) an internal link between two pages on your website, (2) an external link from your website to another website or (3) a link from another website to your website?

[AlanBleiweiss]

Good point Theo - we definitely need more info here.  I had assumed it was a case where Jeremy was just talking about a link he's got to another site - a regular link to a regular page, but where the site owner has somehow gotten a 302 going on that page.

[Buhrly]

The nofollow was put in on a out going external  link from the site i am working on shows up as a 302. Is this the best way to approach a nofollow for external links? And would this be the best way for internal links within the site also?

[AlanBleiweiss]

Ok - no actually.  302 redirects should only be set up by the owner of the site that maintains the page.

If you want to put links on YOUR site pointing to someone else's, make it a regular link but with the "nofollow" attribute if they're paid links.  If you're just linking to other sites because the link connects their related content to yours and you want to offer that additional information, don't do the "nofollow" or redirects.

Your own links within your site pointing to your own pages should be regular links, no redirects, no use of the "nofollow" attribute.

[Buhrly]

OK Alan you are saying that if you put a link on your site that it would be a standard link but if another site paid you for a link that you would use a nofollow? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of what they would be looking for if they paid for a link from your site. Not trying to be difficult just trying to understand. The 302 was set by the owner/developer of the site. In the case of internal linking linking lets say your page has way over a hundred internal links and you want to thin them out and sculpt the ranking of the pages. What would you use.

Thanks Buhrly

[AlanBleiweiss]

sure, it would be defeating the purpose.  But here's the thing.  You either follow Google guidelines for paid links, or you risk the penalty they impose.  It's a risk/reward issue.  So you need to choose.

Since I only recommend SEO best practices that involve the least amount of risk, I recommend that you don't accept paid links in the first place.  but if you do, put nofollow in them.

As for sculpting links, I've personally never advocated spending time trying to sculpt.  You could spend hundreds of hours trying different arrangements and not ever know if you've made a positive difference, or if something else in the hundreds of search factors changed that day.

[Buhrly]

Good point Alan on the paid links. Adding the nofollow would be following Google guidelines and there is risk in not following this.

[Buhrly]

(1) an internal link between two pages on your website, (2) an external link from your website to another website

So in these two situations if a nofollow was needed would you use a 302 redirect?