Redirected Links and Pagerank

What's the latest on this?

[yosmc]

My question is about link directories and banner ads that don't provide a direct link but use some kind of cgi/php redirect...

As far as I know, the Googlebot follows all these links and adds them to their database as if they were actual domains. But for the same reason, such a redirected link won't add to you Pagerank because Google won't recognize that it's the same domain. I also assume that this sort of redirection provides a form of "safer linking," meaning that you won't get penalized for linking to a PR0 site, because Google won't recognize that you're linking to the same domain they have penalized.

Is this true, or are these false assumptions? Have there been any changes recently? Thanks!

[heini]

That's a very good question. There are some redirect links which pass PR, as they show in Google backlinks.

But under which conditions PR is passed or not these days, I'm not really sure. Too much conflicting info.

So what's the latest on redirects and PR?

[yosmc]

Theories and guesses are welcome, too! :-)

[modemmike]

I also use a link directory with links to other sites of interest however the actual link happens thru a redir.asp.

E.g. domain.com/redir.asp?link=14

I think this is pretty common practice but I would like to hear what GG has to say about it...

BTW: On my site I allow users to add links and then I verify them but most of the links that get added are from the site owner but oddly enough when I request links back, no one seems to be home... should I remove those links?

[jranes]

modemmike, I have the same setup as you. I have a page loaded with keywords but I am having trouble getting the link back. I think I'm going to just start slowly dropping them off after two requests for a link back.

[modemmike]

I often check my new refers to see if there are any new links pointing my way and when I find new links I email the webmaster and then add them to my links area, however, lately I have been getting a lot of refers to only my graphics... does that count as a link in? Recently I noticed a huge spike in traffic but it was because someone had used a graphic in a *very* popular forum (news site) so I branded the graphic with my url and left it alone. I'm not real concerned with PR but if these links in don't help then I want to conserve my band width usage.