Several hundred pages redirected

run into it, why does even SE(G) allow it?

[rfung]

happened to run into a website at the top position of a keyword I was studying. The main page is an actual page, but all the links in it are redirects to the affiliate merchant. When I do a 'link:' I see 250 or so links, and ALL of them are redirects to the merchant. What gives? why does the SE's(G) allow for this? How did they even do it? did they have actual pages, and then created the redirects afterwards?

Just wondering

[volatilegx]

When I do a 'link:' I see 250 or so links, and ALL of them are redirects to the merchant.

You mean 250 pages with links pointing to the main page? Or 250 pages with JavaScript redirects?

What gives? why does the SE's(G) allow for this?

It is not as if Google or other engines "allow" this. They just haven't compensated for it YET. It is a simple spam technique that is working well now, if done properly.

did they have actual pages, and then created the redirects afterwards?

I'm not sure what you mean by actual pages. My guess (without seeing the pages, but I've seen a lot like this) is that they used some kind of script to generate 'content' and links to their main site.