This is very bad for mysqlconf.com domain name and equally bad for people who link to http://mysqlconf.com (instead of linking to en.oreilly.com/mysql2008/) as their links then DON'T BENEFIT the conference site and from Google's point of view they are linking to a page that engages in temporary redirect. The result is unless you link directly to an oreilly.com page for your conference links, your votes/links don't get passed on to the conference site.
A 302 redirect is considered bad from search engine's point of view due to its temporary nature.
So please folks, change the redirection to 301 or I will have to go back and change my links to be "rel='nofollow'" links.
Currently, the site gives:
wget mysqlconf.com
--14:27:44-- http://mysqlconf.com/
=> `index.html.2'
Resolving mysqlconf.com... 209.204.146.28
Connecting to mysqlconf.com|209.204.146.28|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
Location: http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2008/ [following]
--14:27:44-- http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2008/
=> `index.html.2'
Resolving en.oreilly.com... 208.201.239.26
Connecting to en.oreilly.com|208.201.239.26|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Moved Temporarily
Location: http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2008/public/content/home [following]
--14:27:44-- http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2008/public/content/home
=> `home'
Reusing existing connection to en.oreilly.com:80.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 16,852 [text/html]
100%[==========================================>] 16,852 45.68K/s
14:27:45 (45.63 KB/s) - `home' saved [16852/16852]
What it should give:
wget fotolog.net
--14:33:02-- http://fotolog.net/
=> `index.html.2'
Resolving fotolog.net... 65.118.195.131
Connecting to fotolog.net|65.118.195.131|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently
Location: http://www.fotolog.com/ [following]
--14:33:03-- http://www.fotolog.com/
=> `index.html.2'
Resolving www.fotolog.com... 64.111.215.105, 64.111.215.120
Connecting to www.fotolog.com|64.111.215.105|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 24,585 [text/html]
100%[==========================================>] 24,585 --.--K/s
14:33:03 (191.15 KB/s) - `index.html.2' saved [24585/24585]
It doesn't just ends here. MySQL is also destroying its mysqluc.com domain in a bad manner. Look at the scary number of 302 redirects here:
wget mysqluc.com
--14:35:29-- http://mysqluc.com/
=> `index.html.3'
Resolving mysqluc.com... 209.204.146.28
Connecting to mysqluc.com|209.204.146.28|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
Location: http://www.mysqlconf.com/ [following]
--14:35:30-- http://www.mysqlconf.com/
=> `index.html.3'
Resolving www.mysqlconf.com... 209.204.146.28
Connecting to www.mysqlconf.com|209.204.146.28|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
Location: http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2008/ [following]
--14:35:30-- http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2008/
=> `index.html.3'
Resolving en.oreilly.com... 208.201.239.26
Connecting to en.oreilly.com|208.201.239.26|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Moved Temporarily
Location: http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2008/public/content/home [following]
--14:35:31-- http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2008/public/content/home
=> `home.1'
Reusing existing connection to en.oreilly.com:80.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 16,852 [text/html]
100%[==========================================>] 16,852 41.99K/s
14:35:31 (41.95 KB/s) - `home.1' saved [16852/16852]
Now I can just hope that someone actually takes action. It's small changes like this that make you get the most out of your domain or waste all the efforts you previously did in making your sites rank high.
For instance, just think how many links people created to mysqluc.com when MySQL conference was known as MySQL Users Conference. Just because MySQL used an insensible 302 redirect, all the efforts of community in linking to that domain went down the drain. The reason being that Google neither transfers the rank with 302 redirect, nor it consolidates the incoming votes/links from old domains to new domains.
Update: Why I keep talking about this: With Google's Bourbon update, I lost a very well performing site that I had worked on for many years. My investigations all pointed to using 302 redirect instead of 301 redirect. Basically, my site was wrongfully classified by Google as engaging in sneaking redirects. The site never rebounded. It was listed in Google news and was doing millions of page views a month. It had proper licensing from all content and news providers. 'Not knowing' didn't set me free in Google's court. By all means, it was a legitimate, high quality content provider site. Although this may never happen to you, Google still considers 302 a very bad form of redirecting and whenever possible it should be avoided.
3 comments:
Your suggestion basically means that mysqlconf.com should forever point to mysqlconf 2008 which would be lame.
You should take some deSEOization course, or somehting…
lol, no you're taking my point in a wrong sense.
The solution chosen to the challenge MySQL faces, as far as conference domains are concerned, is the wrong one. There are right solutions that will let MySQL avoid 302 redirects.
MySQL has had a confusing strategy for their conference domain names from what I see.
They heavily promoted mysqluc.com. And when the domain was ranking high. Then they destroyed their entire positioning by serving content on mysqlconf.com. Finally they just did this weird temporary redirection thing where now mysqluc.com points temporarily to mysqlconf.com which points to a http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2008 which then points temporarily again to http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2008/public/content/home.
There are more practical ways to do what MySQL is trying to do. If they want to promote a single URL for all their conferences, then mysqlconf.com can still stay as content serving page and there is no need for redirection at all.
I would rather have an entrance page that changes to point links to pages on current conference site than go with 302 redirect. But then, of course, you would need to understand the value of your IMC and your online marketing strategy.
302 redirect as its currently implemented just serves one basic function (which can still be served with a proper solution) and is a black hole for all links that come to the domain promoted everywhere. If you don't understand what that loss entails, then you won't understand where I am coming from
oh and even using CNAME would be better than 302.
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