Linking without affecting PageRank.

[Shawn]

That's what I want to do.

On my wireless site, I don't want list coverage maps for each wireless company, but I want to link to them instead. I don't want the hassle of updating and finding decent looking maps, maps that are updated -- and the companies themselves don't provide updated maps, I've discovered.

Therefore, how can I create a link to an outside site that doesn't hurt my PR? I know JavaScript is used with document.write, but I haven't written JavaScript since I was 6 years old.

Help?

[Chris]

Try making forms that redirect through a script

[Shawn]

Um. What?

[GCT13]

Take a look (view source) at the "Home", "Produce", "Promote", etc., buttons on the top nav of this page.

Or..

Create a redirection script like this

bye.php?link=http://www.coveragemap.com

..and disallow it thru robots.txt


I think that'll do what you want (someone can correct me if I'm wrong). Hope that helps.

[chromate]

something like this:

<form method="post" action="http://www.coveragemaps.com">
<a href="#" onClick="javascript: this.form.submit();"> coverage map </a> </form>


OR


<script language="JavaScript">document.write('<a hr' + 'ef = "http://w' + 'ww.coveragemaps.org'">Coverage Maps</a>'); </script>

[Chris]

Actually the top of this page is just form links, they don't redirect.

See this thread for how to do it with server side redirection:

http://www.websitepublisher.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=336

Most of the outgoing links on the main part of this site are redirected through a script.

In addition to stopped PR (if you ban the script via robots.txt or make it non-spiderable another way), is that you can count outgoing traffic.

[GCT13]

The forms on the top nav of this site... can search engine spiders follow those links?

[Chris]

Nope.

[GCT13]

Cool.

And you did it that way because... you wanted to use images up there and didn't want to loose the contextual value of the text-based left navigation? (wild guess on my part)

[Chris]

exactly.

[s2kinteg916]

would this work
and is it even correct ?

<a href = "http://www.test.com" onclick = "self.href('http://www.test.com);">Test</a>

[Percept]

Originally posted by s2kinteg916
would this work
and is it even correct ?

<a href = "http://www.test.com" onclick = "self.href('http://www.test.com);">Test</a>

I don't know if it's correct but Search engines will be able to find that link so you will still lose PR over it. I'll leave it up the others to explain how to do a good javascript link cause I'm not good with it myself.

[Chris]

The safest javascript link is to actually print out the link using javascript's document.write() function. Like in Chromate's post above.

[s2kinteg916]

so this would work ?

<form method="post" action="http://www.cars.com">
<a href="http://www.cars.com" onClick="javascript: this.form.submit();"> Cars.com </a> </form>

is that correct ?

[Shawn]

That's what I was referring to, Chris, in my first post. The document write to split up the address - that's what a lot of major companies use to stop spam.

[Chris]

Originally posted by s2kinteg916
so this would work ?

<form method="post" action="http://www.cars.com">
<a href="http://www.cars.com" onClick="javascript: this.form.submit();"> Cars.com </a> </form>

is that correct ?

No.

A search engine can still parse the red part and thus they'll see the link.