Another Question Re Server Side Redirects

[wackmaster]

Hi all. New user here - I love this place!

I've read all I can in here about server side redirects, but not sure I see the answer to my question.

We have a content site that makes some revenue from affiliate programs. Let's say the site has 50 pages. Half of the pages carry an affiliate link that goes to the same external target page, served by the partner. Problem is, if the target URL changes, or if we replace that affiliate with a different one, we're faced with changing that same link on 25 pages.

One solution could be to change all those links to point to an internal page (rather than the current external target), then use a server side redirect to take users to the external target. That way we only have to change ONE link, not 25. This solution would also obviously keep more PR inside our own site...

But, I don't want to get in trouble with the SE's.

OK? Not OK? Love to hear any thoughts.

Wackmaster

[AthlonInside]

It is safe. Very safe.

But if you are afraid, just block the page from googlebot. You can do it by adding the redirect script to robots.txt.

[wackmaster]

AthlonInside,

Good to know you think it's safe.

Regarding the robots.txt file, it was my understanding that if it's a server side redirect, the internal page that we'd be pointing to (i.e., the page that all of our pages point to, that then redirects to the external target page) would actually never get seen by the bots. Is that incorrect?

[sullen]

whackmaster - it depends what kind of server-side redirect you do. For example, the response.redirect command in ASP actually sends a response to the client, which then sends a second GET request.

Best to block the page with robots.txt to be on the safe side.

[figment88]

A simple approach would be to serve the affiliate links in an iFrame and set the source of the iFrame to a single file you could easily change.

The iFrame, though, will be ignored by old Netscape and some other browsers.

<iframe src="myfile.html" hspace=0 vspace=0 frameborder=0 scrolling=no></iframe>

[wackmaster]

Sullen,

Thanks. Actually the redirect is handled by our hosting company. We just give give URL's for 'redirect from' (our page) and 'redirect to' (external target page). I guess I could contact them and see how they execute this.

In any event, it sounds like with or without the robots.txt file, we'll be in pretty good shape if we handle it this way...

[wackmaster]

figment88,

thanks for jumping in. I've read in other places that the iFrame approach could be interpreted as spam. No?

[sullen]

iframes - yuk.

But I wasn't thinking the problem through completely. Personally I would go for server side includes (easiest with ASP or PHP) - like the iframes solution it would mean updating only one file, but it would work in all browsers.

[figment88]

iFrames could be used to spam, but that does not mean all use of iFrames is spam.

Just about every adserver network serves ads in an iFrame.

The important point is that Google does not consider the contents of an iFrame as part of the page it appears in. If you used some form of server side includes (e.g. .shtml, php, asp) than the content is part of the page because the web server integrates it before delivery.

[wackmaster]

The server side redirects are probably the easiest way for us to implement this.

That said, if we do it that way, are all agreed that server side redirects are pretty safe anyway?

Appreciate the input.