Our neighborhood association has a URL that fits well. We've decided to use Google Apps for the site management to see how it goes. The collaboration tools look kind of fun. Most of the services in Google apps can be built with our domain name: calendar.ourwebsite.com mail.ourwebsite.com etc. However, the root URL still points to us -- I want to point it to the "home" page of our Google Apps site (some crazy long URL). I don't want to use a 301 redirect, as it may not be permanent. Some day, the site might be back at our normal root URL. On the other hand, I've heard that a 302 redirect can look fishy. How can we best point ourwebsite.com over to our long URL on Google's site for a while?
Permanent is, only for as long as it exists. And, is only mostly for SE traffic. If you later take down the 301 the traffic still comes to the URL. Edit: Some form of meta redirection might be a better choice in this case.
You really need a landing page to ever succeed with affiliate marketing. Most people will just leave once they see it's auto refreshing to another site, usually it's against affiliate program rules to do it this way anyways. You also won't be able to use PPC ad networks due to their rules on site quality.
This has nothing to do with affiliate marketing. Please re-read my first post. This is just an informational site for our neighborhood. However, I don't want to do anything that might get us penalized with Google, as we would still like to rank well for some local terms. How can I best redirect our URL (site.com) to our long ugly URL at Google Apps?
That was an after-thought as you can see from the (edit). I am not sure how the SE would handle the Google apps listing. If the primary link remains with the URL then a simple 301 is best. If on the other hand your URL now becomes the ugly one as you called it, you might not be able to redirect it back if you change your mind later. Maybe an example is best: As long as the redirected URL is yourdomain.com/anything/you/want/to/type/here/filename.ext you can redirect it anywhere you want in the future.