302 redirect

[peralis]

Hi,

maybe somebody can shed some light.

I found a site that uses subdomains and is listed pretty well in google for both the subdomain and the www. But all their subdomains are redirected via 302 to a sub-directory.
eg.

sub.domain.com is listed but when clicked it redirects to www.domain.com/sub
These are 302 redirects according to redirect checker.

Would this not cause duplicate content? If so, why are they listed so well?

Any ideas?

[froment]

I think this is issue with domain type; I have hostings on Linux and Windows.

Linux hosting uses CPanel; when I create a subdomain there, it does not realy exist as separate entity - it just redirects to a specific sub-directorium of main directorium; its name by default is the same as sub-domain name, but you may set it to be different. For example, you have domain.com, and its root directory is httpdocs; when you set subdomain mysub.domain.com, it will only create sub-directorium httpdocs/mysub, and redirect subdomain there. During setup process, you may decide to rename that subdirectorium, let's say "/mynewsub", and subdomain will still redirect to it - when you type mysub.domain.com, it will redirect you to domain.com/mynewsub.

However, in my Windows hosting, control panel is Plesk, and subdomains are different entities, they do not reside inside the same root directorium, but each one has its own root, and there's no such a redirection you mention.

So in my opinion, there is no duplicate content, it's just about way of CPanel operation.

[peralis]

Thanks for the reply froment.

I also have a few site at a host with Cpanel. They also set up subdomains as you say, however, these never show up in the search engines and if I type in the subdomain, it shows it that way without a redirect. If I do a header check on the site I am referring to, it shows a 302 redirect and redirects immediately. Also, these show up in the Search engines with both urls...sub.domain.com and www.domain.com/sub.

If it is a server issue with the setup, then it is out of hand, but if intentional, why?

Either way, it would be duplicate content, or not? (since both show in the results in google)

[RyanTheRave]

It is an issue at Cpanel unfortunately. I would say that it IS a case of duplicate content however Cpanel cannot resolve this yet and they have been looking for ways for ages to get it sorted.

The best action to take to combat this would be to place a canonical tag which would solve the issue.