Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How safe is it to use a meta-refresh to hide the referrer?
-
Hi guys,
So I have a review site and I'm affiliated with several partnership programs whose products I advertise on my site. I don't want these affiliate programs to see the source of my traffic (my site), so I'm looking for a safe solution to hide the referrer URL.
I have recently added a rel="noreferrer" tag to all my affiliate links, but this method isn't perfect as not all browsers respect that rule. After doing some research and checking my competitors I noticed that some of them use meta-refresh, which seems more reliable in this regard.
So, how safe is it to use meta-refresh as means of hiding referrer URL? I'm worrying that implementing a meta-refresh redirect might negatively affect my SEO. Does anybody have any suggestions on how to hide the referrer URL without damaging SEO?
Thank you.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Tools to test meta descriptions?
Hey does anyone know of any tools which can test your meta descriptions against competitors meta descriptions for specific keyword terms. I know one tool called SERP Turkey which uses mechanical turk, i was wondering if there is any others on the market? Even a tool which can automatically score your meta description against others on the SERP results page. E..g optimised, keyword, call to action, etc. Cheers, Chris
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jayoliverwright0 -
Pagination loading with using AJAX. Should I change this?
Hello, while I was checking this site; http://www.disfracessimon.com/disfraces-adultos-16.html I found that the pagination is working this way http://www.disfracessimon.com/disfraces-adultos-16.html#/page-2
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | teconsite
http://www.disfracessimon.com/disfraces-adultos-16.html#/page-3 and content is being loaded using AJAX. So, google is not getting the paginated results. Is this a big issue or there is no problem?
Should I create a link for See All Products or there is not a big issue? Thank you!0 -
Structured Data + Meta Descriptions
Hey All, Was just looking through some google pages on best practices for meta descriptions and came across this little tidbit. "Include clearly tagged facts in the description. The meta description doesn't just have to be in sentence format; it's also a great place to include structured data about the page. For example, news or blog postings can list the author, date of publication, or byline information. This can give potential visitors very relevant information that might not be displayed in the snippet otherwise. Similarly, product pages might have the key bits of information—price, age, manufacturer—scattered throughout a page. A good meta description can bring all this data together. For example, the following meta description provides detailed information about a book. " This is the first time I have seen suggested use of structured data in meta descriptions. Does this totally replace a regular meta description or will it work in conjunction with the regular meta description? If I provide both structured data and text, will the SERP display text and the structured data the way it was previously displayed? Or will the 150 -160 character limit take precedence and just cut off all info after that?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Whebb0 -
Using the same content on different TLD's
HI Everyone, We have clients for whom we are going to work with in different countries but sometimes with the same language. For example we might have a client in a competitive niche working in Germany, Austria and Switzerland (Swiss German) ie we're going to potentially rewrite our website three times in German, We're thinking of using Google's href lang tags and use pretty much the same content - is this a safe option, has anyone actually tries this successfully or otherwise? All answers appreciated. Cheers, Mel.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dancape1 -
Should I remove Meta Keywords tags?
Hi, Do you recommend removing Meta Keywords or is there "nothing to lose" with having them? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet0 -
Meta Tag Force Page Refresh - Good or Bad?
I had recently come across a meta tag that could cause a auto refresh on a users browser when implemented. I have been using it for a redesign and was curious if there could be any negative effects for using it, here is the code: All input is appreciated. Ciao, Todd Richard
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RichFinnSEO0 -
How to auto generate a unique meta description?
The site I am working on is a code nightmare for starters. I'm editing a file called layout that controls the section of each page. The programmer from a while back got unique titles by putting this piece of code in: <title><?= $this->metaTag ?></title> In all the different controllers and stuff I can see where the title is the name of the product plus review or something to that effect. How do I do this for the meta description? Right now the meta description is static in the layout file, and so every page has an identical one. I was hoping there was a way to make the meta description automatically use the first 140 characters on the page or something. Something like this:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DanDeceuster0 -
Is it safe to redirect multiple URLs to a single URL?
Hi, I have an old Wordress website with about 300-400 original pages of content on it. All relating to my company's industry: travel in Africa. It's a legitimate site with travel stories, photos, advice etc. Nothing spammy about. No adverts on it. No affiliates. The site hasn't been updated for a couple of years and we no longer have a need for it. Many of the stories on it are quite out of date. The site has built up a modest Mozrank value over the last 5 years, and has a few hundreds organically achieved inbound links. Recently I set up a swanky new branded website on ExpressionEngine on a new domain. My intention is to: Shut down the old site Focus all attention on building up content on the new website Ask the people linking to the old site to my new site instead (I wonder how many will actually do so...) Where possible, setup a 301 redirect from pages on the old site to their closest match on the new site Setup a 301 redirect from the old site's home page to new site's homepage Sounds good, right? But there is one issue I need some advice on... The old site has about 100 pages that do not have a good match on the new site. These pages are outdated or inferior quality, so it doesn't really make sense to rewrite them and put them on the new site. I call these my "black sheep pages". So... for these "black sheep pages" should I (A) redirect the urls to the new site's homepage (B) redirect the urls the old site's home page (which in turn, redirects to the new site's homepage, or (C) not redirect the urls, and let them die a lonely 404 death? OPTION A: oldsite.com/page1.php -> newsite.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AndreVanKets
oldsite.com/page2.php -> newsite.com
oldsite.com/page3.php -> newsite.com
oldsite.com/page4.php -> newsite.com
oldsite.com/page5.php -> newsite.com
oldsite.com -> newsite.com OPTION B: oldsite.com/page1.php -> oldsite.com
oldsite.com/page2.php -> oldsite.com
oldsite.com/page3.php -> oldsite.com
oldsite.com/page4.php -> oldsite.com
oldsite.com/page5.php -> oldsite.com
oldsite.com -> newsite.com OPTION 😄 oldsite.com/page1.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
oldsite.com/page2.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
oldsite.com/page3.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
oldsite.com/page4.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
oldsite.com/page5.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
oldsite.com -> newsite.com My intuition tells me that Option A would pass the most "link juice" to my new site, but I am concerned that it could also be seen by Google as a spammy redirect technique. What would you do? Help 😐1
