links from dynamically generated directories

do these count?

[lachtzu]

I am researching many niche directories to link to my site, but want to evaluate if they'll help my PR (relevant traffic being equal for this question).

The actual page where my link would show is dynamically generated, so I'm guessing the spiders won't find me that way, i.e. no PR from that listing.

I've been trying to verify this by going to an already-listed site on the directory in question, and checking to see if the directory shows up as a reverse link - if it doesn't is that a good sign that the link won't help my PR?

[jonrichd]

You're probably right that dynamically generated URLS won't appear in search results. If the result is:

www.xyx.com/results.asp

or something like that, and that URL appears for every query into the directory, it probably won't be indexed. However, if you get

www.xyz.com/results.asp?id=134

then you might get the benefit of the listing.

One thing to try is to go into the search engine, and type in the complete URL, and see if the page is in its index. If it is, you know that you'll get some benefit.

[DarkBlue]

Every directory will be different but to use a familiar site as an example.
You might list your site in Overture and you will not get any direct benefit from this. However indirectly you will pick up page rank from some of Overture’s partner sites.
e.g. search.com

So I guess the point is, while the directory you list in may be dynamic or not indexed for another reason you may still pick up some PR :)

[lachtzu]

jonrichd -
i have a directory where the listing page is definitely dynamic, but the Google toolbar shows that this page has PR. It is a specific query string, not just << www.xyx.com/results.asp >>.
But, I went to Google and typed in the URL exactly from the address bar, with the? and variables exactly as shown for the listing page, but it's not returning any document matches.

So, which is true for my getting PR - the google toolbar, or typing the dynamic URL into Google?