Do Facebook links count for Google?

[serenoo]

Every now and then I receive some hits from facebook. I am not able to understand from which facebook's page they are from because in my stats I have
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mywebsiteexample.com&h=6a6a0

Do you know if they are dofollow links and if they are visible for Google?

[edited by: tedster at 8:55 pm (utc) on Nov 19, 2010]
[edit reason] de-link the example URL [/edit]

[tedster]

The traffic is going through a redirect script and crawling it is disallowed by this line in Facebook's robots.txt

Disallow: /l.php

So that link doesn't transfer PageRank. However, it DOES have whatever value is currently placed on unlinked "mentions" by Google. That is a topic of some current discussion - however that factor is not part of the PageRank algorithm.

[aristotle]

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mywebsiteexample.com&h=6a6a0

Some of your traffic from Facebook might be coming from the search box at the top of Facebook pages.

[SEOPTI]

I know some web 2.0 properties where after upgrading your account the links do not have "nofollow". Go figure :)

But the best way is to set up your own small web 2.0 property and you will be fine.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

However, it DOES have whatever value is currently placed on unlinked "mentions" by Google.

I am no expert in this field but it strikes me that the search engines should be deciding for themselves what links should add to a site's PR. They are the guys who have to provide the SERPs so why allow others decide if a link should be counted?

(Am I going to be shot down in flames for this?);)