referrer links

[jrfurman]

Hi,

On my site people cteate listings that include a URL to their website. I would like to be able to track how many times their link is clicked, and yet still have the link available to the search engines to help their SE ranking as well.

I know how to do it if I didn't care about the SEs seeing their actual URL.

I'm using PHP, any suggestions?

Thanks,

[Birdman]

I believe jump.cgi?url=h*tp://blah.com type links count as backwards links. The only other solution I can think of would be javascript, which will not give true results.

[dmorison]

Interesting.

Does that mean that Google makes a sweeping assumption about the function of anything called jump.cgi - perhaps where it is followed by a parameter of name "url"?

Adds: Or is it more subtle - and Google just considers anything that looks and smells like a URL to be a link - either immediate or via some magic...

[jrfurman]

so if I use jump.php?(URL) Google would recognize the URL as a URL and not a parameter?

Thanks.

[dmorison]

Hi jrfurman,

One half-way-house would be to display both your tracking link _and_ a direct URL, but give visual emphasis towards your tracking link so that it is the one most likely to be used.

For example:

<h1><a href='tracker.php?id=1234'>Site Title</a></h1>
<p>Site Description</p>
<small><a href='http://www.example.com'>http://www.example.com</a></small>

Most users will see and click on the <h1>'d link, but Google will quite happily do with the direct URL whatever it does with URLs.

[Birdman]

Here is a discussion from some of the honchos:

passing PR thru jump.cgi style links [webmasterworld.com]

[jrfurman]

Thanks guys, dmorison I considered that but thought it not proper.

But it sounds like the GoogleBot follows the link to its destination then decides whether to rank it or not.

Cool! :-)

[dmorison]

Sorry Birdman -

I took you too literally on the jump.cgi thing!

/gets back in cave :)