Linking to a page that redirects to another site

[Alli]

Does googlebot follow links that points to a page which is redirected to another site? I want to know if this kind of a linking improve the page rank of the other site , or just direct links work?

[Stefan]

Googlebot follows all the links, unless they're using some script/method that they can't digest. A redirect is no problem. What the algo thinks of them afterwards is a different thing.

I want to know if this kind of a linking improve the page rank of the other site , or just direct links work?

As far as I understand it, a legit 301 to a new URL should transfer PR, but I'm not positive on this.

Is there some reason why the links can't be to the new URL, rather than through the redirect?