does Googlebot follow url in meta refresh?

I thought it didn't but apparently it does

[bluecorr]

Hi there,

There is this site domain.com that the index page redirects users to domain.com/dir/index.html through a meta refresh set at 0 seconds. On the domain.com page there is no other content or links apart from this URL. Now I thought Google can't follow this sort of link but when I check the cached version of domain.com Google displays the content of domain.com/dir/index.html? Can someone shed some light onm this? Also, is PR passed to the URL specified in the meta refresh?

I would also like to know if such redirect can affect the depth in which Googlebot explores a site.

Thanks.

[doc_z]

As far as I know, Google follows these redirections and PR is passed. Google doesn't distinguish between these pages. The content is taken from the target page.

[bluecorr]

so why does everyone say to stay away from meta refresh redirects? Is it just because sometimes they're used for spam?

[bluecorr]

Just checked and domain.com/dir/index.html is PR0 when domain.com in the GOogle dir is PR7.

[doc_z]

bluecorr,

how old is the redirection?

Is Google showing the same info / backlinks for domain.com and domain.com/dir/index.html, respectively? (using the info / link command)

[bluecorr]

I don't know how old it is and domain.com/dir/index.html returns 0 backlinks. There are other subdirs domain.com/dir1/ and domain.com/dir1/ which show the exact same backlinks as domain.com.

Can anyone else confirm based on experience whether google follows meta refresh tags and if passes all of the PR to the new page?

I was also wondering if this redirection is an extra step (wasted) for Googlebot and if it may cause it not to crawl as deep.

Thanks

[doc_z]

bluecorr,

I would guess that the redirection isn't very old and that PR will be shown after one of the next updates.

In general it seems that a meta refresh doesn't cause problems (e.g. www.microsoft.de).
(A 301 redirection will pass PR and is recommended by Google.)

[BlueSky]

Regular metatag redirects return a 302. You could add a header to give a 301.

[Harwich]

Bluesky,

Could you give an example of how to do the metatag redirect that returns a 301 and not 302?

Thank You