(Entry was posted by CHARGED.fm on this post in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 02/19/2014).

302 and rel=canonical question.

Hey everyone, newbie here to the group and to Seo. I was wondering if it`s bad form to 302 from a short URL to the actual page and then relcanonical back to the short URL from that page. Confusing I know.

The site im working for doea this often as a way to clean up urls but it just doesnt seem right.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Luke?

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CHARGED.fm: Hey everyone, newbie here to the group and to Seo. I was wondering if it's bad form to 302 from a short URL to the actual page and then relcanonical back to the short URL from that page. Confusing I know.

The site im working for doea this often as a way to clean up urls but it just doesnt seem right.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Luke
Stephen Watts: Yes this is bad. Rel canonicals should point to the actual content. If you intend the canonical URL to be the short URL, then serve the content at that location.
CHARGED.fm: Thanks +Stephen Watts. Is it common to use 302s to clean up urls? Ive read that some people do it that way but it doesnt seem like a best practice to me. Im trying to write them an seo report but lack a tech background.