Hi, I've just set up a directory of Cannabis links (and related). The sites in there that link back to me will receive a link straight back to their site. Those that don't have their links pointing to a gateway page (out.php?link_id=whatever). I'm wondering, should I use a 301 or 302 redirect from that page to their site? Which would be better for me and which would be better for them, if they differ? Another thing - as an incentive to link back to the directory, do you think it's a good idea to provide a "more info" page for reciprocal links only and just a brief link in the category page for the non-reciprocal ones? Or should I provide a "more info" page for all links? If you have any other tips on how I can improve my directory, I'm all ears and willing to learn! Thanks in advance.
Your strategy might have you running afoul of Google. They do not like it when folks charge for links and they consider requiring a reciprocal link as a form of payment. With your concept, it would make it more obvious that you are only directly linking to a site if they pay.
Ah ok. I'll scrap that idea then. I have no intention of selling links. I'm still going to send all clicks out through that gateway though like the following: <a href="http://www.example.com" title="http://www.example.com" onclick="window.open('http://www.coffeesh0p.com/out.php?link_id=LINK_ID', '_blank'); return false;" rel="nofollow">http://www.example.com</a> Code (markup): because the gateway now records hits. So, is 301 or 302 redirecting better for this purpose? What's google's stance on having a "more info" page for each reciprocal link, but not for non-reciprocal links? Is there any way at all I can reward those that link back to me?
The sites won't receive any SEO benefit if you do it that way, ergo you might not get many folks submitting their sites, but if you add sites manually you can still build a big resource.
Are you referring to the rel="nofollow"? In which case not all the links will be using it, I don't think. I link to each site using their own anchor text (within reason!) and once again with the URL as the anchor text as in the example. I will probably nofollow the url link but not the title link. Not sure yet.
I agree with IC IC, if you implement the "nofollow" tag most webmasters will be reluctant to submit a site as it won't offer them any ranking benefit. It's a good policy to share and share alike.
If you're forcing them to linkback, give them some decent benefits. I wouldn't bother with reciprocal links. Google is against them and few webmasters can be bothered...
I'm not forcing anyone to link back. I just want to provide an incentive for those who do. An incentive that won't piss off the search engines, that is!
Won't engine spiders follow the valid href attribute of my links, rather than going through the javascript onclick attribute, which actually does the internal redirecting? A normal user with javascript disabled will go straight to the link, but for those with javascript enabled, it will open my internal url in a new window/tab and also return false, meaning the href attribute won't be followed in the original window. If spiders don't interpret javascript, why will a perfectly valid link for a non-javascript user be of no use for SEO?
Hate to bump my own thread, but which is better for me or my link partners? A 301 or 302 redirect to their site from my gateway?
none of them will give any benefit to your partners, and have a website full of temporary(302) or permanent(301) redirections won't help you. You should try to change the system, perhaps applying some PHP-Javsacript combination to count clicks, keeping direct links to your partners.
It IS a javascript thing. While the normal, JS enabled user will actually go through my gateway, anyone not using JS will go straight to their site. Am I missing something, or is no one actually reading this thread?!