redirects killing me

[rizla]

Hi,

i was pretty fuzzy to post this link but I just got to know your opinion. asap 8-| .

by now, as a good student, i internalized that redirect pages are cloaking and cloaking is spam (whatever that is :rolleyes: ).

but- i've noticed one site that gets good results and lots of SERP in any second keyword or keyphrase on his field. this site uses redirect pages with good anchor job to less linked, graphic & dynamic pages.

using redirect will solve an enormous problem i have with a system that uses parameters like session id on the url,

what do u say? should i keep on sweating on server definitions or just redirect and focus on my next diy mission? (overture - it's new here :rolleyes: )

i'm not giving them links until a moderator tells me that i'm stupidly moonstruck and that it's ok (haven't slept more than 3 straight hours since saturday, sorry if i sound terrified :eek: )

so - just replace the "google" with "yahoo" and see what i'm talking about:

http://allbiz.co.il/Upload/google/2find-1227.htm

[Robert]

Hi Rizla,

Redirect and cloaking are different animals.

In a sense, cloaking does redirect requests to other pages/sites. But, these redirects are quite specific based on the user agent, IP, etc., of the requesting party.

The idea is to identify an agent like google, and them feed google a page optomized just for google. Yahoo will get a page designed for Yahoo, and Altavista... well, perhaps they like everyone else can be shown a page that is not optomized at all. ;)

In most cases, a redirect is a simple function that always acts the same. For example, if a page used to be hosted on Server A, but is now on Server B, you would redirect all traffic for that page from Server A to Server B. All requests for traffic from Server A would be sent to Server B every time, all the time.

This would be a legitimate use of a redirect, and would be fine. There are ways to misuse redirects, and most are easily spotted.

Using it to get past a "&" in the URL should not be a problem. Again, there are different kinds/ways to do it. You would actually just be trying to rewrite the URL while going to the same place, which can be quite simple depending on the web server you are hosted on.

If you can tell us what kind of server (IIS, apache, etc.) you are on perhaps someone could give pointers to mitigate any potential problems.

[rizla]

using both and i'm not very familiar with mode rewrite and Isapi FUNCTIONS...

[owlcroft]

Redirection is simply a tool. Like any tool, it can be used to do good things and to do bad things.

Servers, such as Apache-powered ones, that offer an .htaccess file allow a site operator to pretty well control any and all redirection relating to his site (or sites), as well as many other highly useful things. The best starting point for getting an understanding of the mod_rewrite feature, controllable through directives in an .htaccess file, is from the horse's mouth, the Apache folks; look up the Apache mod_rewrite info page (http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_rewrite.html) for starters.

For more general information on how to use all the powers of your .htaccess file, there's this handy .htaccess tutorial (http://wsabstract.com/howto/htaccess.shtml) .

It is not uncommon--and is perfectly legitimate--to offer different versions of one's site based on determining the visitor's client: a visitor using a Lynx browser can be fed a text-only version, a user with a Mozilla-based browser can get the full works, a visitor with a M$ product can get the appropriately broken code needed to make his garbage client work, and so on.

It is when such offerings are made to differ for search-engine robots, by offering something that no real visitor ever sees, and that is different by having wild SE spam that would look horrid if offered to actual human visitors, that a site has crossed the line between sound functionality and cheating.

That is perhaps the essence of the definition of "black hat" techniques: they present a different face to searchbots than to the public.

[rizla]

morgan? seo-guy? seo-kid? seo-bob? jocelyn? diligaf?

[tfbpa]

I don't really see any problems here....
You said in another thread that that guy is nr1 and you are nr2. When people search I believe that they also look at the URL and his looks so dodgy that probably nobodys clicks it. If they do and they see such a load of garbage before the actual page, they will most probably leave. I am not sure what your site is about, but I really don't think you are loosing traffic to the other garbage site.

[jocelyn]

[QUOTE=rizla]using redirect will solve an enormous problem i have with a system that uses parameters like session id on the url[/QUOTE]
Well if the pages are using session ID then you should look for mod_rewrite.
Google does not like session ID and to fix this I don't think redirects are the best.
Server 301 redirects are ok, but other ones may not be good.