I recently received the following email from the owner of some sites in my directory: I’m requesting that three of my websites be removed from your Index immediately. All three (and I’m assuming every other Site in your index) is redirected and your Site is grabbing the PR. You have 72 hours to remove the following sites from your Directory - LISTED SITES If these three Sites are not removed from your Site, I will: - File complaints with Google, Yahoo, MSN, Alta Vista and Hot Bot as to your 302 redirects; - Contact every site in your directory, link pages and your advertisers; - Report your Site to Google AdSense; - Post your Sites Name in the Top 10 SEO Forums highlighting your tactics; - Set up a website to warn others about your tactics; - Report your tactics to your hosting company & ISP for failure to meet TOS agreements & Copyright infringement. Your Directory will be automatically checked on a random basis to verify that the above links are not re-instated at your discretion. Now, as it happens, the directory uses straight HTML links to all sites in it; the redirects are used for internal ranking purposes, whilst the straight links are used for SEO purposes, and therefore should pass PR (if it is actuallt important) What I was wondering about was the threats involved to file complaints with the search engines, ISP's etc. Is there actually a case against a site for using 302 redirects? I would have thought that if you didn't like it, don't submit your site. The sender nearly wound up with all his sites deleted anyway - I don't appreciate threats of any kind - but it could be an honest mistake, and I emailed him with the links to where his sites have straight HTML links, and will only delete them on no reply, or a further request for removal.
According to this thread: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=13267 Yes, the redirects are apparently 302, not that I know much about these, but there are straight HTML links as well.
yes, without doubt the links out from the directory are 302 redirects. Here's one picked at random (using wget) wget http://www.directorygold.com/cgi-bin/directorygold/out.cgi?id=553 --08:46:47-- http://www.directorygold.com/cgi-bin/directorygold/out.cgi?id=553 => `out.cgi?id=553' Resolving www.directorygold.com... done. Connecting to www.directorygold.com[70.85.79.116]:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Moved Personally, I wouldn't touch it with a barge poll. If I understand the 302 redirects, it's possible to effectively hijack a site. Wether you like threats or not is irrelevant, if you're causing duplicate content through your 302's, a complaint to the SE's will result in you getting dropped from the indexes. If it were me, you wouldn't get a further request for removal that's for sure.
So it is the 302's that are causing the problem, then, despite the straight links? I don't really know much about the difference between 301 and 302 redirects; presumably they could be changed in the script. Unfortunately, as my knowledge of CGI based script is pretty close to zip, I would have to get the original programmer to alter it.
And would a 301 redirect be better? I have contacted the programmer, but he is several hours behind me, so it's the early hours of the morning there, and I won't hear back to this afternoon.
As far as I'm aware, 301's are fine - at least I hope so. One of my pages use 301's for outgoing links. Can you point me to one of the straight links - I can't see any (but then I'm not long out of bed).
Don't worry, NOBODY notices the straight links without help. Fortunately, search engines don't have any problems. Anyway, here is the route from the index page to a straight link: http://www.directorygold.com/index.shtml http://www.directorygold.com/28_Sports.shtml http://www.directorygold.com/664_Billiards.shtml Click on the Details link here, which will take you to http://www.directorygold.com/553.shtml which contains the straight link.
yuck. A straight link using the url as the anchor. If you change the 302's to 301's most people will be happier and at the least you'll not be hi-jacking sites within the SERPs. It sounds as though you genuinely didn't know this was wrong (I'll give you the benefit of doubt). If you paid for the script shout loudly at the programmer. He's actually put you at risk, the bigger sites wouldn't bother with a threatening email. You'd simply get a 'cease and desist' from their legal department possibly followed by a lawsuit for damages.
Yes, I didn't know about it. I didn't even know about 301 and 302 redirects until recently; I am only just beginning to understand the diffrence. So much to learn, so little time.
Too true. Glad I hadn't got around to listing sites like BBC, CNN etc yet. BTW, I was checking the source code for the page, and there are two straight links, one with the URL as anchor, and one with the submitted website title
Definitely get rid of the 302ing. Some report they are finally dealing with at at Googleplex but it's still a huuuge danger. However many directory entries you have, you could be taking them down one by one with the 302. It's very destructive (but Google's fault it is, not yours). Do the web a favour and fix it ASAP.
Yes, I am in the process of trying to get it fixed, but I need the original programmer to fix it. I can mess around with HTML, have a little knowledge of PHP, but CGI based scripts are totally beyond me. Will have to wait until this afternoon/later tonight to hear back from him.
The script uses the redirects towards a sites ranking within the directory, as shown below: Category Results: DirectoryGold will sort links in the category results based on the following algorithm Hits in = Hits x 25 Hits out = Hits x 15 Overall rating of 3+ = (Rating x # of Votes/2) Overall rating of 2.99 to 2.00 = (no points) Overall rating of 1.99 to 1.00 = neg (Rating x # of Votes/2) The total point value is then added up and compared to the values of the other links in the category. The links are then sorted from highest to lowest. If any sponsor links exist in the category, they will be listed first. Search Results: The search results are sorted with the following algorithm Keyword/Phrase Matches = Matches x 100 Hits in = Hits x 3 Hits out = Hits x 2 Overall rating of 3+ = (Rating x # of Votes/2) Overall rating of 2.99 to 2.00 = (no points) Overall rating of 1.99 to 1.00 = neg (Rating x # of Votes/2) Besides, that's the way the script came. I liked the biz directory script, but the paid version was a bit too much initially, and after contacting the author, I found the free version couldn't be easily upgraded to the paid version. I picked the script I am using because of the straight HTML links. I didn't know enough about redirects to check them.
But if someone clicks the straight HTML link, it won't be counted so the 'scoring' functionality is inaccurate, right?
What is the name of this script? Who makes it? What is their URL? What would happened if we all 302'd them....
Yes, it does throw it out. But I have found that users, unlike search engines, generally don't notice the straight links unless they are pointed out to them. Actually, I've never communicated with anyone who has seen them straight away. In the future, I have though about getting the script seriously modified, but keeping the existing database, but that is definitely in the future.