NYCPHP Meetup

[inforequest]

As a follow-up to the SEO presentation last Tuesday, someone asked how 
Yahoo! handles 302 redirects since there does not seem to be any 
"hijacking" problem on Yahoo!

During the talk I did not recall that Yahoo! presented their new 
approach to handling the 302 redirect in Las Vegas last November. I was 
in that audience and it was very important at the time, because Yahoo! 
had been mis-handling 301's as well as 302's for several months prior to 
that and it had become a real hassle. I don't know why I forgot about it 
--  Anyway I looked it up and it is archived on the Yahoo! blog here : 
http://www.ysearchblog.com/files/wmw2004/search-engines-and-webmasters.ppt

See slides 14 and 15 for a description of how they handle the 301 and 
302 redirects.

Basically if the 302 is within-site, they either keep the original 
anyway (if it was root) OR (if it was deep within site) keep the new 
target page.
If the 302 is OFF-SITE, they choose to store the target in the index, 
which eliminates any benefit to 302 redirecting as a form of hijacking.

-=john andrews