Dynamic Linking

avoiding shooting myself in the foot

[quiet]

I have an informational site where people can link using an assigned sub domain which, if used, will dynamically create "back to the XYZ site" links on the top menu bar and the bottom of all the pages. It forwards them to the main domain with www while setting a cookie for the links. (Urls for links going back to linking sites come from a sign up dumped into a local db)

Any comments regarding how this would affect PR. I'm concerned about it looking like spam to the SE since the incoming links are to different URL's (subdomains only) when they end up at the main domain.

I have a related question that I'll add later. Thanks!

[Brett_Tabke]

Ya, it's spam. In general, all multi 3rd level domains are considered spam unless proved otherwise. The ease with which keyword spam can flow from 3rd level wildcard dns is so prevalant, some se's will ban all but www as a thrid level. It's not gotten any better the last couple of years. Sure, there are some exceptions for large sites and sites will killer pr, but joe and sally six pack webmaster get hit hard by se's over thrid level domains. When's the last time you ran into a non www 3rd domain high in the results on Google?

[quiet]

Well dang it. Any suggestions on how to handle this? Like maybe banning robots from non www sub domains? Wouldn't help PR for www but would it hurt it?

The main goal is to dynamically create the return links back to referring sites while allowing them to take advantage of other outbound links. I could, of course, have them link to www with a cgi and variable that identifies them but its not as pretty as using sub domains but I'm not sure whether that would help.

The main site would be about 95% informational resource.

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Example: Lets say xyz.com is a site explaining how to tie knots. xyz.com may also have links on its various knots pages saying "If you are looking for boos or other sites dealing with knots click here" which might take them to a page with a book on tying knots.

Site 123.com is a sailing or fishing club.

a) 123.xyz.com (all pages would have "return to 123.com")
b) www.xyz.com/index.cgi?123 (all pages would have "return to 123.com")

In both cases the sub page with the book link would dynamically add the clubs ebay or BandN affiliate code.

In *my* mind, neither of those are attempting to spam SEs but I think you're saying that because of widespread abuse method "a" (at least) would be processed as spamming.

BTW, I totally appreciate your comments!