Does Google count links that use a redirect script?

[FranticFish]

I wanted to ask what people thought about Google's weighting of links that use a redirect script on the linking site i.e. <a href="redir.php?id=123">

Assuming that the page isn't blocked in robots and there's no 'nofollow' on the link, is Google able to recognise that it came to page B from page A and make the connection?

If I understand correctly, Googlebot just discovers urls and the assessment of the pages is done separately. So if there is nothing in the code of page A that links it to page B, is the link invisible? Or is it possible that Googlebot, when it records page B's url, also makes a note of the url(s) that it came to the page via (in this case page A)?

[Planet13]

This is probably best asked in the google forum.

My guess is that if google does recognize it as a link, it probably sees it as an affiliate link and assigns less page rank to it, but that is just a WAG on my part.

[goodroi]

Google has been expanding the ways it gives credit to websites. Historically Google looked for html links. Now Google seems to be trying to figure out all citations and references to a site. I would not turn down redirects or any citation. I would prefer a straight link that users would click on over and over again.

[FranticFish]

Me too, I just find that older dynamic sites sometimes link in archaic ways that we'd traditionally consider 'non-spiderable'.

When you're paying money for or investing time into a link you want to know that it's going to be credited, so I wondered if anyone had any hands-on experience or had run any tests.

[agent_x]

Well it certainly lists them in GWT and will display "via this intermediate link" and the script that did the redirecting.

[lucy24]

via this intermediate link

This phrase can mean just about anything. I went back to check because I remember seeing it recently and it definitely isn't anything to do with scripts!

Link: /games/
"via this intermediate link": www.example.com/games/index.html

:: cough, cough ::

:: ahem ::

:: pointedly avoiding eye contact with various people ::

So "intermediate link" is what the originating site says, and the "real" link is how g### lists it.


Incidentally, I noticed while looking this up that the date g### gives for "most recent post" isn't the most recent post at all. It's the date of the first post. Gotta remember that in the case of threads that putter along for months. You may need to set a deeper time frame.

[agent_x]

This phrase can mean just about anything. I went back to check because I remember seeing it recently and it definitely isn't anything to do with scripts!

It shows the location Googlebot was at before it was redirected to land on your page, so it could be the non-www version of your page before your .htaccess redirects it to the www version for example. But in the context of this thread, it's the location of the redirect script that does a 301 or 302 redirect to your page.

[FranticFish]

Thanks for all replies.