Tracking outbound traffic

with intermediate pages and redirects. Possible? Acceptable?

[ken_b]

I'm wondering if it is possible and, more importantly, acceptable to track the use of outbound links from my site by the use of intermiediate pages which are redirected to the outbound target site.

The intermiediate pages would be basically just contain a simple "Thanks for visiting (mysite), please come back soon* message, with a quick redirect to the target site.

I would like to put all these intermiediate pages in a NO INDEX folder so they would not get indexed by the search engines, if possible.

This would let me see which outbound links were getting click thrus.

But would it annoy users too much?

Would it annoy search engines too much?

Or is there a simpler way.

Thanks.

[amoore]

If you just want to track the outbound links, I would reccommend not using a page with an HTML meta refresh type redirect. I personally find it rather annoying, and don't see the need for it.

I wold reccommend using script that presents an HTTP command to redirect. Perhaps just a "Location: " header or maybe even a 301 or 302 code for temporary or permanently relocated.

Randal Schwartz wrote a good column on this type of script at [stonehenge.com]

This type is pretty commonly used for tracking outbound links. I know google does it for their AdWords, and overture does it to track click-thoughs.