Querystring tracking variables and page uniqueness

[coffeebean]

I posted this question in another thread about session IDs but it really is a separate (though related) issue.

Let's say you want to track every inbound link to a page with a querystring parameter, such as /page.html?ref=xyz.

So every inbound link has a unique tracking variable appended, but they all end up at the same page with the same title, content, etc.

I know the bot will index all the unique URLs and Google will ignore all but one for the serps. But is that one URL receiving the benefit of all the backlinks?

Can Google really not understand that all those links point to the same page even though the URLs are slightly different? I would think they're sophisticated enough to consolidate them by other factors on the page besides the URL.

Obviously you won't see all the backlinks if you search using link:http://www.example.com/page.html?ref=xyz, but then Google doesn't let on everything it knows about backlinks anyway.

[edited by: ciml at 4:56 pm (utc) on July 16, 2004]
[edit reason] Examplified [/edit]