Type of headers for a outbound link record and redirect page

[itledi]

I redirect all outbound links from my site to a dynamic php page which records key metrics into a database before redirecting the user to the requested page.

I use a rewrite rule in my .htaccess file to make these outbound links shortened, with all these "links" and the php page the links get processed through being located in a folder excluded from my robots.txt file.

My question is, what kind of header should my PHP page have?

Also, how might I exclude these links from being listed in the search engines, and should I have any special of redirect being used in my .htaccess file?

Thanks

[whoisgregg]

You'd want to use a 301 header... Anything else is going to cause problems for search engines and users.

As far as exclusion, just block the redirect script in your robots.txt.