Redirecting and Link Juice

[netfleet]

One site we operates will redirect a user to a relevant page, depending on where the link they clicked on was from. For example, a user has a link to our site on the domain name example.com.au. The link would look like:

[oursite.com.au...]

Once the user navigates to [oursite.com.au...] a php script reads where it has come from using the $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] variable, and redirects it to something like:

[oursite.com.au...]

Which displays a custom page for that user. The redirect doesnt have any HTTP status codes set, which I think defaults to 302. We have many links from many different sites, with some users owning multiple sites - thats why we havent hard coded a direct link in [oursite.com.au...] (it is simpler for a user to use 1 URL for all their sites, rather than build a different link for each). Also we havent done a permanent redirect (which would definitely pass on link juice) as of course in the eyes of search engines the redirect would be forever moving

My question is - how much link juice would be passed on? And would it be directed to [oursite.com.au...] only? And is there a better way to pass on link juice?

thanks very much in advance for any help!

David

[tangor]

Juice? Not sure, probably not very much. Secondary, why all the redirects? Why not a landing page?

[netfleet]

Thanks for the reply

Well we run a domain name aftermarket site - where people can list their domain names for sale.

We want to encourage people to promote their listings so have created banners for them "This Domain may be For Sale" sort of thing for them to use on the website itself as well as elsewhere.

Ideally we want those banners to link to the existing listing but also if we can gain some link credit then that's good for the site.

Make sense?

[leadegroot]

When the bot follows the link to oursite.com.au?redirect it will not supply a referer (because it doesn't)
This means all the juice will be retained by the oursite.com.au?redirect page.
What were you planning on serving when you can't determine the referer? Thats what will gather the juice.

(And don't forget that some people block the referer, so this won't work for them)

[netfleet]

Yes, aware that only certain systems allow referrer. If referrer not supplied it will just remain on the oursite.com.au?redirect page, which will show the home page - would it be better do you think to have a different custom page to avoid poss duplicate content issues? When referrer supplied, it will redirect to the users custom page.

leadegroot - ah of course. bots dont use referrer! I forgot about that! Its ok if link juice only stays on the oursite.com.au?redirect page as this will in turn filter to various pages.

Thanks for your help!