Does Google Follow Affiliate Links?

[Webmeister]

I'm sure this has been discussed around here before, but my programmer and I have been debating this lately and we can't seem to agree on it. He seems to think that Google will follow a link such as www.example.com/referral.asp?affiliateID=1234 and count it as a backlink for www.example.com, but I am not so sure that they will. I have recently been checking out my backlinks, and it does not seem as though Google is counting them as backlinks.

Is here a way to get Google to count affiliate links as backlinks?

Thanks!

[steveb]

A link to www.example.com/referral.asp?affiliateID=1234 is a link to www.example.com/referral.asp?affiliateID=1234.

[Whitey]

I'll re confirm steveb's answer to help your decide what you will do.

[edited by: Whitey at 10:13 am (utc) on April 25, 2007]

[Marcia]

There have been instances where affiliate sites have displaced the sites of the merchants' sites they were promoting, in the SERPs. PR won't be passed, but confusion can result - maybe not at one engine, but possibly at another.

Instead of indies (some with the purpose of garnering PR), if links are run theough a reliable network for tracking, there's no PR passed for sure, but there's no confusion either.

[oziman]

It counts as a link - the best way, to get the most value of the link is like this:
set up your tracking software to accept the link as http://www.example.com/page?affiliateid=2222 or something. Have the script grab the id, place the cookie and then 301 redirect to http://www.example.com/page without the affiliate link.

That way you get the most value for the link.

[edited by: tedster at 4:34 pm (utc) on April 25, 2007]
[edit reason] switch to example.com - it will never be owned [/edit]