Community homepage: domain root redirect to subpage for logged-in users bad for SEO?

Question

I run a community website. I plan to distinguish between guests (wich also contains search engines) and logged-in users for the domain root, because logged-in uses should see an overview of new content, while guests should be pressed to register. They should see an overview of the site's features, a login form and a lot of "Register now" links.

I'd like to do this with a redirect for logged-in users to /home when they visit the domain root.

Guests can also visit /home form the domain root and the rest of the site of course.

So, we have:

• www.domain.tld/ -> kind of a landing page / just accessible for guests / logged-in users get redirected to /home / there's also a link to /home.
• www.domain.tld/home -> Overview of site's (new) content. This is where logged-in users start their session.

May this be bad for SEO? Should I use a 302 redirect?

Answer 1

Is this bad for SEO?

Probably not. Googlebot and non-logged in users will be able to access the home page normally.

Should I use a 302 redirect?

Yes, but not for SEO reasons. 301 redirects are aggressively cached by users. If a logged in user encounters that redirect and then logs out, you want to be able to show them the normal home page. If you use 301 redirects, the redirect will get cached by their browser and they won't be able to get to the home page.