Inbound links acquired link to some domain prior to redirecting back to us - is it worthy ??

[LauraHT]

Hi,

We recently ran a competition through a seoPR agency to acquire inbound links from articles created by bloggers in the niche.

It turns out that the anchor text from those articles (<a href=""></a>) are linked to a subdomain (complex long text url) of that agency's site before redirecting to us.

I am put off a little bit now and want to know if that was a rip off.  Could anyone tell me that if those links are worthy for SEO for us?? What should I do now?

Could anybody can help me please. Any experience is appreciated!

Regard,
Stephen

[LauraHT]

Thanks for your update I'll take a look

[Linda-Vassily]

I like to use this Google Chrome extension for looking at redirect paths: http://www.ayima.com/seo-knowledge/redirect-checker.html

[LauraHT]

Thanks and I'll talk to them. By the way how do I check if a link is 301 redirect?

[rishil]

That answers a fair bit.

Those posts are probably paid for and or the agency wants to simply track the traffic it drives through those links- those are affiliate tracking parameters with SEO friendly redirects - and probably a risk to your business in my opinion they way they are set up because affiliate type links are kind of against google guidelines... You can see some affiliate sites offering the same solution here: http://www.postaffiliatepro.com/features/affiliate-link-styles/

I would ask for them to be changed to normal links if it was my business.

[LauraHT]

Thanks for the update! Your opinion is helpful

This was done for seo purposes agreed by us. And they are not press release and the agency do not pay for them. We run a competition managed by the agency therefore blogger came up with articles sharing experience for some thing etc...

The links of those anchor texts look like these:
http://subdomain.mainseosite.com/scripts/click.php?a_aid=nicheLoversNotes&a_bid=05b3a39b

BTW I would not think the redirect is 301 as mainseosite.com is their main business site. And how do I check if they are 301 links?

Before I talk to them I think it might be better double check in this community first as I was given good suggestion previously.

Any opinion?

[rishil]

It turns out that the anchor text from those articles (<a href=""></a>) are linked to a subdomain (complex long text url) of that agency's site before redirecting to us.

Typically if they paid for those links, and they were done purely for PR purposes then this not a bad way to do it as long as the links are either no followed or pass through a no indexed tracking script (like this sounds like).

If those links WERE gained through legitimate pr and were for SEO, then this is fairly odd behaviour - BUT if the links arent nofollowed and the redirect from their tracked URLs are through a legitimate 301 redirect and not through a noindex/nofollow URL, then you are likely getting some benefit.

I am put off a little bit now and want to know if that was a rip off.  Could anyone tell me that if those links are worthy for SEO for us?? What should I do now?

Without seeing the URLs its hard to say, but sounds like you had those links built for SEO reasons, in which case I would find the current method fairly odd to say the least. Like I said, there is a way these can pass authority, but need to check the exact URLs to determine. However I would suggest asking them the question first and maybe posting their response here?