Are These Types of Links Tracked

[Netmark]

I have a client that is looking to be listed on a group of directory sites for the service that they offer.  After reviewing the site I found that they have a unique way of listing their links, check out one example at http://www.lakidsguide.com/Summer_Camps.php#educational where each title is a link that goes to the client website.  IF you look at the first listing for Adventure Treks the link actually goes to http://www.lakidsguide.com/linktrack.php?type=listingionid=33&bid=9391&listingid=10176 and then is redirected to their true website at http://adventuretreks.com/.  Would this link be picked up by Google and the other engines as a link from lakidsguide.com to adventuretreks.com with the way they are directing the link to their own tracking page first?  To me it seems that the engines would not see any outgoing link and therefor the listing would not give the client any benefit as far as SEO is concerned.

Any input?

[AlanMosley]

I dont think the like has its value dissolved.

it is a follow link, google concern is not passing link juice, they dont want you to be able to link to someone without costing link juice,.

If it is follow and it can be folowed, meaning it does not have a redirecet page blocked by robots, then it will pass link juice. see what Matt Cutts says

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmoHmfy5AcQ

[rosstaylor]

Though the link itself has it's SEO value dissolved, consider the link may still hold value as a "citation" if trying to rank in Google Places for say "summer camp [city]" in a city or region that does trigger places results if there are lots of summer camps.

[AlanMosley]

These links are followed by Google noe days as they now follow javascript links.

It was my belief that they did this so they did not pass link juice and so wee of no value, but I believe that if they are followed by google as they are now, then they will pass link juice.

[MikeTek]

Ryan is correct in that redirects are not the ideal kind of link - and the reason they're redirecting in this case is most likely for tracking purposes.

However, you need to check the server response code in these cases.

A 301 redirect is a "permanently moved" response, and these will pass link juice (not 100% of it, but better than nothing).

In this case, the server is responding with a 302 "temporarily moved" status. **This will pass no ranking value. **

In this case, the link has no SEO value - and I would evaluate it purely on the traffic it generates.

There are an array of tools out there for checking server response codes - I use this one: http://www.seoconsultants.com/tools/check-server-headers-tool/

Here's the server response I got for the link you've referenced above:

<dt>SERVER RESPONSE:</dt>

<dd>

HTTP/1.1 302 Found Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:23:23 GMT Server: Apache/1.3.28 (Unix) mod_gzip/1.3.26.1a PHP/4.4.8 mod_ssl/2.8.15 OpenSSL/0.9.7a X-Powered-By: PHP/4.4.8 Location: http://adventuretreks.com/ Content-Type: text/html

</dd>

[rhutchings]

These redirect type of links are for tracking purposes on the side of the referring website- which are usually systematically generated by the CMS platforms they have.

In short, no, these are not the high value direct SEO links that you are looking for.  However, search engines are able to follow these links and also follow the redirect to the website (adventuretreks.com in this case), but at that point is of little SEO value and gets tracked as a referral type of link.

If you are paying for these listings (which i assume you would be to a degree) you would need to evaluate the value of that link based on the traffic it would send, and not the SEO value it gives you.