Source Code Tracking vs. Page Rank

Any new ideas on this contradiction

[Chicago]

It has been awhile since we addressed the contradiction of using source code tracking on external links for ROI and other measurement purposes relative to the need to generate page rank.

Does anyone have any new ideas on dealing with this problem? Our firm continues to side with source tracking over PR, but I am getting ever more concerned about losing PR benefit.

[Chicago]

two of the most important functions in Internet Marketing being mutually exclusive?

worth one more artificial push up the WW Active

[dmorison]

hehe WW Active List spamming are we :)

Anyway, consider what Google can learn from a link that is direct as opposed to one which smells like it has tracking capabilities...

You could argue that a whiff of commercial interest should not carry as much weight as a direct link...

[jeremy goodrich]

Consider many, many affiliate links are indexed by Google. Then consider that these are large, well known programs - and the sites they link to may have pagerank - but not from links.

The only PR they have that I've seen, is from these affiliate / tracking links which provide a 302 redirect.

As long as your links use a redirect which Google will follow, they will be indexed just fine. However, they may not pass the pagerank the same as straight html links.

There is always cloaking to consider - that is, deliver a page to any spiders with straight links - then, for users, serve up a redirect in it's place. Perfectly legitimate use of cloaking, and something that may help greatly.