Linking to external sites...

[das_boot]

A small project of mine is a site that has a large links section. I currently have links in a database, and to track when they're clicked I use a PHP page that's called with the ID of the link to redirect to, then do a Location header to redirect the browser. So the links in the links page all look like this:

mysite.com/redirector.php?linkid=1
mysite.com/redirector.php?linkid=2

etc.

My question is, what effect does this have on search engine rankings and ratings, in comparison to direct links?

I could easily change all those links so that the PHP page simply writes the whole link out and the user clicks directly from my page to the target site - but then I wouldn't be able to track the links, which I'd like to do.

TIA,

DB

[ScottM]

My thoughts are that the SE's treat mysite.com/redirector.php?linkid=1 as just another page. It ends up knocking a bit off of PR for Google, I think, but in general it's really nothing new.

If tracking those clicks is a huge issue, it sounds like you've got it under control. If rankings are an issue, (for your site, I imagine), A link out is a link out...