Masking reciprical and affiliate links

To hide them from the search engines

[instinct]

Suppose you have made some reciprocal link exchanges with other webmasters who aren't SEO savy or possibly only care about the traffic from your link and not the potential PR or linkpop.

What about using javascript links on your site in this case - so that the SE's don't see your outward link(s)? That way, these link exchanges will appear to be one way.

I was also wondering about using this technique for outbound affiliate links, as it's been speculated that too many affiliate links might set off some sort of penalty.

What do the gurus think? Will it work? Is it ethical?

Thanks everyone.

[Balle]

Is it ethical?

No it's not.

...I mask all my aff links on new sites - but it takes like forever so I have just left the older sites as they are.

[rj87uk]

do it as god... i mean Google* intended!

link to sites that your readers will find helpful, and also people say that your out bound help Google decided what your page is about?

I dont like the way some people *try it...

[HughMungus]

I thought Google could follow javascript links now. Even though I use an internal redirect for affiliate links, I assume Google knows where I'm linking to by following the links (just like I would assume the bot can follow any link that a surfer can). Am I wrong?

[rj87uk]

Yeh i think they can...

they even can index PDF files....

[instinct]

After further consideration, I don't think I would do this for anything other than affiliate links.

Now, my question is: if G can follow javascript links, what if your link tracking/redirect script" was located in a "no-robots" directory?

Am I right to think that G wouldn't be able to know that the link redirects to an Affiliate site?

Regards...

[xxxxxpp]

I even heard googlebot can now read flash files

[rj87uk]

I even heard googlebot can now read flash files

Can you let me more information on how you know this? example or on a google blog etc...?

[martinibuster]

Google can follow flash links. It's a fact. If you do a site search on WebmasterWorld you'll find the discussion from last year.

[HughMungus]

Well, it begs the question (might be a stupid question): Do spiders actually follow the links they find like a surfer's browser does (say, with a redirect) or do spiders just note what links are on the page regardless of where they go?

[Webdetective]

How about using server redirects for all your ugly affiliate links by adding this to your .htaccess file:

Redirect /abcsoftware [abc.longuglyaffiliatelink....cgi...]

Lots of web gurus recommend this technique and say there's nothing wrong with it. One nice thing about this technique is if you ever need to change your affiliate link, you can instantly update it in one easy step instead of having to edit links on hundreds of individual pages.

[instinct]

That sounds like a good call Webdetective....