Affiliate links

[lukasz]

I am building my own inhouse affiliate program and I am not sure which linking url should I use:

1. link to www.mydomain.com/?ref=refID or

2. link to www.mydomain.com/ref.php?ref=refID where ref.php sets up cookie and redirects (301) to index page.

I understand that if I use the first solution each affiliate link will be trated by SE as pointing to different page. I am not sure how the second solution will work but probably se will interpret it as pointing to the same page.
Waht do you think?

[ThomasB]

I would go for the 1. solution. It looks better imho

[antirack]

If you want to score top in search engines, you should not use any? and &.

For example you could have something like that:

www.yourdomain.com/start_1123.html

while your script takes the the 1123 as the affiliate id. This is tested with one of my direct competitors, but unfortunately it works against me because I am the one using the? and & :(

[ThomasB]

But does he really want these sites to be indexed? - I don't think so because it costs money if somebody comes via this page.