the bots can easily identify a url shortener, as this performs a normal 301 redirect

no, i'm referring to Boomajoom's comment above "only 99% of the rank instead of the full value".

no, it won't hurt your SEO, but you will get less out of it than by linking directly. how much of the link juice flows is unclear, but my estimate is that it's much lower than 99%.

yup, i know that problem. too many requests to Google from the same IP. The IPs from which you query Google should frequently change, otherwise you'll get blocked.

hi blurbpoint

wow, thanks for your in-depth thoughts about this and the helpful references. So it seems that adding parameters to the linked-to url will be a signal that the link is paid for? Makes sense.

Only one thing I didn't understand: what do you mean by "saving the website's image while leaving some link juice"? 
I didn't quite get that...

thanks for your thoughts guys. but i think you misunderstood the question. In both cases, the external site is linking to our own site. the page linked-to is the same one. but the question is, if it devalues the passed link juice if we add the parameters ?sess_affiliate=ta to the link we get.

hi

we can get a valuable link with the desired anchor text from a news site. the destination url would be something like www.site.com/product. but in order to track conversions, our sales team would like to add an affiliate id to the url, so that it would look like this: www.site.com/product?sess_affiliate=ta

how much link juice would a link to this affiliate url pass? would we be shooting our wad by linking to the ?sess-URL instead of the original URL?

I feel your pain as well... There's nothing more frustrating than finding competitors with such obvious spammy tactics, wondering how Google could not recognize it and penalize the living hell out of these sites...

However, I can offer no advice but the obvious: build better links and create helpful content. I know, that's even more frustrating if you don't see any effects but in the long run it's the only choice. Sometimes I had to wait up to one year (!) until sites with obviously bought Russian footer links finally disappeared from top SERPs, so patience seems the only way to go.

At least you don't have to be the only frustrated SEO here and your example made my day. I hope when I grow old and sick, my children will also advice me to buy a car and eat pork. Must be some medicine...

Oh, and I don't want to stir up a hornet's nest here, but there's always Google's Spam Report for those competitors who overdo it... (though some SEOs find this unethical to do)

Hi Stephen

Thanks for your thoughts. Personally I don't think we need this but people from corporate communication somehow got stuck on this idea. See if I can scare them out of it by mentioning load time...