Link questions

[kodo]

Hi!

I've got two questions regarding links.

First of all does it make a difference if my page is submitted to google as [<host>.de...] and other pages link to it as [<host>.de...] without the www?

And does google handle links that go over a cgi-script for example href="/cgi-bin/redirect?url=http://<host>.de"?

greetings,

kodo

[seeber01]

First of all does it make a difference if my page is submitted to google as [<host>.de...] and other pages link to it as [<host>.de...] without the www?

Yes it will matter when it comes to PR but not to whether Google will spider your site. At this time Google recognizes each of those domains as separate. So domain.com will get the PR from the links, not www.domain.com Google has no restriction on submissions, so if you have links into domain.com, just submit that to Google as well.

And does google handle links that go over a cgi-script for example href="/cgi-bin/redirect?url=http://<host>.de"?

Google will follow cgi links with limited parameters, however temporary redirects do not distribute PR.

Debs

[rogerd]

There have been quite a few discussions of the www vs non-www issue here, and even Googleguy weighed in. Google apparently tries to algorithmically determine if the www and non-www domains are the same, and theoretically should match them up. The reality is quite different at the moment for many domains.

I'd recommend being entirely consistent with linkage - internal and external. Pick the version of the domain you are going to use, and use it exclusively. You can put a 301 redirect on the version not used, which should transfer any PR directed at that domain. Yahoo may have a bit more difficulty with 301s, though, so you may want to read up on that.