'Dangling links'

How to stop PR from leaking out?

[mrclark]

On one of my pages (Page T) I have a link to a page which we will call page C.

Page C has only one link to it and no outbound links. I'm not at all bothered about this page being ranked in the search engines as it is only a small page for my visitors to quickly look at - It's basically like a small 'pop up' html window.

The question is: How do I get it so that my Page T will not count the link to Page C as an outbound link - so that it doesnt effect the other pages on my site.

Is the only way to link back from Page C to Page T?

Steve

[kaled]

Use javascript.

<SCRIPT>
document.open()
document.write(html_link_text);
</SCRIPT>

To make doubly sure, construct the link from two (or more)strings, that cannot indiviually be mistaken as urls.

Kaled.

[mars9820]

best way is to let every outgoing link go to a "doorway" page.

In that page you will tell the user that he will leave your page and you put a meta refresh of a couple seconds on that page.

All these doorway pages you will put in a directory and you disallow robots to crawl that directory :).

That is the only and best way that will work for the longrun since you never know what links google can and cannot follow. Besides tomorrow all can be different.

[kaled]

That is the only and best way......

By best, you certainly don't mean simplest and by only, well, there are several more ways.

Kaled.

[PatrickDeese]

FYI having google crawlable links to a disallowed page or directory still causes PR "leak".

[Patrick Taylor]

Trouble is, some people don't have JavaScript enabled. Correct me if I'm wrong, but an alternative approach altogether - and perhaps a sound one in the long run - would be to use PHP to introduce the additional content into the existing page on demand.

[unreviewed]

When you eat a cookie, do you worry about the crumb?

The best solution is to simply place your link and not worry about PR loss.

[mars9820]

I was digging into the forum as well did a googlesearch.

Back in March 2004 googleguy suggested this himself.

The problem with javascripts or other tricks is that googlebot becomes smarter and smarter everyday.

what works today won't stop the bot tomorrow. So better fix things in 1 time instead of wasting your time over and over again.

Besides for most companies it is a good thing to have an exit page to remind the user that they are leaving their page. (legal issues)

Another trick that helps is put a special promotion on that outgoing page with a notice like....You are leaving to blablabla.com...Unfortunately for you...you are going to miss our special...bluewidgets familypack for 5 USD.

or something similar.

[mrclark]

With my example isnt the best answer to simply link back to the original page?

I.e Page T links to page C so put a link on page C saying something like 'return to page T'.

That would then give Page T a vote back from page C

Hmmm? :)

Steve

[mrclark]

Plus it would be user friendly.

[DerekH]

I do exactly that and it works very well.
DerekH

[Patrick Taylor]

I must be missing something... I thought page C was a popup. If you link back to page T, which is already open, won't it open another page T?

[DerekH]

You're right.

In my case, I open the popup window as a target=_blank.
At the top and bottom of the window there's a message inviting the user to close the window to return to normal browsing.

But I link back to my home page (rather than the calling page). Yes, I take your comment that the user would end up with two windows open if he did that, but my way allows Google to exit the page and move on elsewhere, and moves some of the PR to a page of my choosing.

With careful layout of the text, the (human) reader of the page will find it completely friendly.

But yes, you're right <smile>
DerekH

[blaze]

I wonder if this means that PR is getting transfered via affiliate links.