Does rel=nofollow work in meta-refresh?

I have a php script that presents the user with something to look at for a few seconds while waiting for a search-results page (from another site) that takes a while to come in. I am using this form of code in the script-page's head:

<meta http-equiv=Refresh content="0; url=http://www.someplace.com.resultspage.html'" />​

(The "0" causes forwarding as soon as the page is available, which can be 5 or even 10 seconds.)

When a searchbot hits that script, what will it do? Will it index just the content of the "We're waiting" display, or will it detect the Refresh meta command and use the content of the loaded (forwarded-to) page?

If the latter, would putting a rel="nofollow" in the meta refresh line stop it from waiting for or following out the url there?

The problem is that I have, effectively, an awful lot of pages like that, and I don't want the corresponding other-site search pages to be hammered by the searchbots.

 

I dont think rel=nofollow will work with meta-refresh..

try adding this one..

 

I, too, think nofollow wouldn't work. Whether a nofollow would work is unclear, inasmuch as it is not really "following" a link. In any event, I just up and rewrote the whole thing, so the problem was defined out of existence. But I'm still vaguely curious...

Thanks for the thought.