When The Landing Page URL Is Different From Root Typed In?

Site is using a third party service that becomes part of url.

[hershie]

With my issue, when you type in www.domain.net, the URL that shows up on the landing page becomes www.domain.net.THIRDPARTY.com, as the company used a web-based platform to build the site that gets added to the root domain URL typed in.

My question is:

Will the S.E.'s penalize or not give PR to inbound links that only have the root url and thus I should optimize for the full landing page, or either way is fine?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

[encyclo]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, hershie!

It depends on how the redirect is done. If you are using a 301 Permanent Redirect, then things should be fine for Google if your backlinks point to the redirected URL. However, Yahoo has had problems with 301s. If the redirect is done any other way, such as a 302 Temporary Redirect or even by meta refresh (shudder), then you will have problems if your links are not pointing to the final destination URL.

[hershie]

Thank you encyclo for your helpful response. Much appreciated. BTW, I have been lurking for a while and love this board.

[hershie]

Yikes, when I looked at it using the Alexa toolbar, it shows the traffic details and links for www.domain.net.THIRDPARTY.com from THIRDPARTY.com and not the www.domain.net.
Now I am not even sure if the PR2 it has is the third party's rank and not the www.domain.net's rank as they are the same.