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Example: Website A places a link to Website B. The Webmaster from Website B doesn't want Website A's link and instead wants to link it to another page. Is there a code that Website B's Webmaster can write on his page to accomplish this?
If in JavaScript, you could try examining the value of
document.referrer? If server-side then
$_SERVER['HTTP_REFERRER']in PHP? This is not 100% reliable however.
How will this effect your serps?
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE=JAVASCRIPT TYPE="TEXT/JAVASCRIPT">
if ((document.referrer != '') && ((document.referrer.indexOf(http://www.bad-url.com) != -1) ¦¦ (document.referrer.indexOf("http://www.bad-url.com") != -1))) {
//
document.location = "http://www.bad-url.com";
}
</SCRIPT>
The bad site that is linking to my Website still has my link on their Website, but when you click on it, the visitor stays on this Website and never comes to mine. I don't want traffic from this site and the script above solves this problem. Thanks to all. However, in the back of my mind, I wonder if I have to worry about any detrimental SEO side effects? Do I have to worry about slipping in the rankings due to this script?
I have a bad feeling about it, but can't put a finger on it.
The bad site that is linking to my Website still has my link on their Website, but when you click on it, the visitor stays on this Website and never comes to mine.
I think, strictly speaking, since you are using JavaScript the visitor does in fact arrive at your site, your page is downloaded to their browser (at least part of) and it is only at this stage that the visitor is redirected back again (by the browser).
If, like Lord Majestic suggests, you were able to use a server-side scripting language (such as PHP) to check the referrer then as soon as the request for your page is made (the visitor clicks on that link), you can direct them back again (with an appropriate HTTP Status Code, that search engines should acknowledge). Your page is not downloaded to their browser, no JavaScript required. Just a thought.
I wonder if I have to worry about any detrimental SEO side effects?
Well, as g1smd suggests, I don't think your (JavaScript) code will have any effect on a SE robot. They will follow the link and arrive at your page as if the code wasn't there. But is this a good thing? If you don't want this site to link to yours then presumably you don't want to be associated with the site in any way. If a SE robot is able to follow the link then may be it will assume there is a connection?!
(If it was a server-side script then this will effect robots as well.)
They work through a list of documents to download, and the downloaded documents are then sent on to another process which parses them. Among many things, that process extracts any URL references within the page, and simply adds those URLs to the list of documents to be pulled. The bot will then download them a few hours to days later.
Robots ... do not send a referrer.
Ah, thanks for the clarity! So even a server-side script (based on the referrer) will not function to filter out robot traffic that had originated from (or the link was found to be on) website A. Only user-navigated traffic can be acted upon in this way?
But (I am assuming) the robots are recording from where they found links to website B? Quality of inbound links - SERPs etc.
