We have a live streaming site. Each user has a "profile page" (example.com/username), that contains biographical information and links to their past broadcasts. This is what we want Google to index.
However, if the user is live when you visit their page, we redirect you their current broadcast (example.com/username/broadcastid).
This behavior is ideal for users, because the broadcast is usually why they are visiting the page (they can also click through to the profile if they wish, but most don't). Broadcasters often simply share their username on social media, so the bulk of traffic initially arrives on the profile URL, rather than the broadcast URL.
The issue is that to a search engine, this could be seen as a "Sneaky Redirect" (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2721217?hl=en). Worse, Google may think it is a permanent redirect, and index the broadcast page instead of the content-rich profile page.
One solution would be to not redirect and require the visitor to click through to the broadcast. But this would degrade the user experience for the sake of SEO.
We could also detect the search engine, and not redirect them, but that could be considered cloaking.
Note: We can't use a server-side 302 redirect due to caching, and the real time nature of live broadcasts. We use AngularJS, which checks if the user is live and performs the redirect.
Is their any precedent for this type of content? What is the best practice?
