Press Releases - Tracking or Natural URLs

Tracking URLs or Natural URLs?

[dnyren]

I have been utilizing press releases for the benefit of SEO and although I was able to get reads etc, I never could get a definite number of visitors to the site from the release and therefore wanted to know if using a tracking URL like?SM=PRWEBetc. would harm back link to my site. Now I know some have mentioned using a Google News Agregattor to track but seems a bit complicated and dont know if it still will get all the traffic generated.

Now being that I use webtrends to monitor my searches is there anything I can do that will 1.) give me SEO benefit through having links point to site 2.) be able to determine the amnount of traffic produced from the press release?

If this can be done with a tracking URL that would be awesome but can someone just let me know as I am hoping to release ASAP.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

[jadebox]

You can get the same benefits as direct links while tracking the source of the clicks. Use the tracking code in the links. On your server, check for the code. If it's set, record the visit then do a 301 redirect to the same URL without the tracking code. Search engines should treat all the URLs as the same and you'll have stats for each source.

-- Roger