File Uploads Appear as 302 Redirects
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So the SEO department just came into my office guns blazing, accusing me of using hundreds of "302" redirects. I was like, Oh my! That can't be!
Anyways, long story short, the client has uploaded hundreds of PDF's and then linked to them from pages. The actually links of course don't go straight to the source file, but a URL that redirects to the file. It appears as a 302 redirect and supposedly this is bad for their SEO? I'm not sure. But can someone explain the way the routing works for files and why? And should it really matter considering these uploaded files don't need to show up in search engines to begin with?
Thanks,
David
Anyways, long story short, the client has uploaded hundreds of PDF's and then linked to them from pages. The actually links of course don't go straight to the source file, but a URL that redirects to the file. It appears as a 302 redirect and supposedly this is bad for their SEO? I'm not sure. But can someone explain the way the routing works for files and why? And should it really matter considering these uploaded files don't need to show up in search engines to begin with?
Thanks,
David
The URL of the target file is issued as a HTTP 302 (Found) and supposedly does not transfer 'link-juice' - that might be why the SEO department was upset (https://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection). Another reason - which I have just run into - is that it makes reporting a damn sight harder to understand: product-features.pdf is a lot easier to understand than /download_file/view/123/456.
My own view is that a CMS is a convenience to allow non-experts to modify content; sometimes it means that it is difficult to implement things the way you would want. The central premise of the C5 file manager and its versioning system makes it hard for me to see a way around this specific issue.